


speak now (or forever hold your peace)

by gayfee (warren_space)



Category: Drawfee RPF, Hot Guy P.I. (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Instagram, M/M, Partners to Lovers, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warren_space/pseuds/gayfee
Summary: Nando's ex-wife is getting married, and there's no way he's going to the wedding alone. Enter: Schmidt.(Rated kind of between T and M? For sexual references. Let me know if I should change the rating to T.)
Relationships: Schmidt/Nando
Comments: 68
Kudos: 325





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Karina!

Nando wasn’t a jealous guy. He really wasn’t. But when he learned that his high school sweetheart was getting remarried, that brought up some old, complicated emotions. And when he learned that he had no choice but to go to the wedding, _just_ because the bride happened to be the mother of his thirteen-year-old daughter, well, that was kind of a lot.

Nadia, his beloved angsty tween with eyes full of hearts and walls full of K-pop posters, would be sitting at the head table with the happy couple, which meant he’d be left to stew alone in his not-jealousy and high school nostalgia. No way was he enduring that alone. So when he got the invitation in the mail, all pretty and lacy and frilly and repulsive, addressed to “Romeo Fernando Sy and guest” in swooping calligraphy, he RSVP’d with a plus-one while he muttered to himself something like “who the fuck still gets their wedding invitations addressed in calligraphy? In this economy, Daniella?” 

Nando was hot. He could find a date to a wedding easily. 

That was about eight weeks ago. The Thursday before the wedding, he was less confident. He and Schmidt were on another ridiculous case for another rich husband that suspected his wife was cheating. _Is that all private investigators do?_ Nando was pretty sure the husband was cheating, too, but God forbid a woman gets sick of a loveless, unfaithful marriage, and strikes back once or twice. Nando thought everyone would just be happier in candid, consensual open relationships. Humans weren’t designed for monogamy. 

He used to be a lot more romantic. In high school, he’d slip notes in the slats of Daniella’s locker, making grandiose promises of flowers and forevers in poetic verse. He picked dandelions in his yard when he couldn’t afford roses, made her hold them in a bouquet as she closed her eyes and imagined the soft red petals and long green stems and a future together where money was no object and roses grew like grass in their yard. She told him his voice in her ear was better than roses ever would’ve been, and he told her he loved her and meant it. 

They were in love— intensely, unquestionably, temporarily. 

Nando didn’t regret loving Daniella, and he never would. And not just because she gave him Nadia, and Nadia was the best thing in his life. He wouldn’t regret loving Daniella, even if she wasn’t the reason he had Nadia. Loving Daniella was a part of him that would always be there, buried deep beneath the cynicism and practicality of adulthood. They were co-parents first and friends second, and exes always last.

He would always love Daniella. He wished that was why it stung so much to see her remarry. In actuality, he was a big fan of her new fiance, and was more than happy for them. He treated her well, had a stable job, and was a good influence on Nadia. They were really in love, and Danielle deserved to be really in love. She deserved a guy who could give her roses instead of dandelions, who would write her poems and make her promises that he could actually keep. He wasn’t that guy. He didn’t think he believed in that guy anymore. 

It didn’t sting so much to see her remarry because he was still madly in love with her. It stung so much to see her remarry because it meant she was starting a new life, and he was stuck in limbo between who he used to be and whoever the fuck he was now. But, as he insisted, he wasn’t jealous. 

“Earth to Nando,” Schmidt sing-songed, waving his hand in Nando’s face. He snapped out of his haze. “I asked if you had plans this weekend.” 

“Oh, uh, yeah.” 

“Okay, good talk, then, geez,” he dismissed, taking a useless peek through his binoculars. Useless because, for one, no one was in the house they were surveilling, and two, he was holding the binoculars backwards. 

“Sorry,” said Nando, yanking the device from his hands, flipping it the right way, and handing it back. “I’m going to a wedding.” 

“Fun! I love weddings,” said Schmidt. It only made Nando’s dread intensify. 

“You wanna trade lives?” 

“What, Freaky Friday style?” 

“Sure.” 

“You couldn’t handle looking this good,” Schmidt joked. Nando looked him up and down, and kind of agreed. If being that hot made you as vapid and clueless as Schmidt was, he probably couldn’t handle it. He didn’t want to. “Whose wedding?”

“Ex-wife.” Schmidt appeared to be processing that like a computer shutting down and rebooting. 

“I thought you were gay,” he said after a while. It wasn’t what Nando expected him to say. 

“Why did you think that?” 

“I don’t know. Your whole… deal.” Nando didn’t know what to do with that. He wasn’t offended that Schmidt thought he was gay, but he liked to think that wasn’t his _entire_ deal. Though, lately, he felt like he knew less and less what his ‘deal’ actually was. 

“I’m bisexual.”

“Oh, rad,” he said, and Nando found himself letting out a breath. He didn’t say that out loud very often, and there was a part of him that feared every time he did, even when he knew there was nothing to fear. Schmidt let the subject die as quickly as it came up, like it was no big deal. Nando supposed it wasn’t one. “Why are you going to your ex-wife’s wedding?” 

“Our daughter’s the flower girl.” 

“You have a daughter?” Nando looked pointedly down at his “#1 Dad” travel mug, the one that matched his “#1 Dad” mug at the office, and then back at Schmidt, who was blinking cluelessly up at him. 

“Schmidt, we’ve been working together for months now. How do you know nothing about me?” 

“Well excuse me,” he defended, “sorry I’m not in the business of knowing intimate details about people’s personal lives.” 

“You are _literally_ a private investigator.” 

“And what about it?” 

Nando put his head in his hands and wondered, not for the first time, if it was safe to let this guy operate a motor vehicle. 

Schmidt went back to doing who-knows-what on his phone, so Nando went back to feeling sorry for himself, and trying to come up with a last-minute way to get a date to a wedding. 

He made an extremely bad decision, because desperate times call for desperate measures. He didn’t expect to be called out on it so immediately, though. 

“Oh, sweetie, no,” Schmidt said, not looking up from his phone. 

“Did someone wear orange in an Instagram post again? I’m telling you, you have to be less judgmental.” 

“No, worse. An extremely clueless coworker of mine appears to have just downloaded _Grindr_ looking for a date to his ex-wife’s wedding.” Nando’s eyes widened, called out. He didn’t care much what Schmidt thought about him, but being called clueless by the most clueless person he knew didn’t feel particularly good. 

“In my defense, I didn’t think you’d see that.” 

“The app works by proximity. I’m a foot away from you.” 

“I don’t know how the app works. It’s like Tinder for guys, right? I figured it would be more accepting.” 

“Oh, God. You’re hopeless. Of course you’re a dad. You’re like, perpetually forty-five years old.” Nando was only thirty-two. It just so happened that his twenty-nine year old partner had the priorities of a seventeen-year-old. 

“Better than forever twenty-one,” Nando argued. 

“No, it’s not.”

“I don’t want to go to my ex-wife’s wedding alone, okay? I don’t want to be the lonely ex-husband at the singles table.” Schmidt appeared to pity him, which he hated. Nando was the only one who got to pity Nando.

“Fine. You’ve forced my hand. I’ll be your date to this thing,” he said, as if Nando asked. He blinked slowly in disbelief as he registered what just happened. Nando wouldn’t say that he forced Schmidt’s hand as much as _very_ accidentally signed up for the most uncomfortable and embarrassing night of his life, but, well, it didn’t seem like he had another option. “Please get off Grindr, before I put you in a nursing home.” The phone buzzed in his hand, and he looked down at it. 

“How has someone already sent me a picture of his penis? It’s been, like, two and a half minutes.” 

“Welcome to the 21st century. Let me see that,” Schmidt ripped the phone from Nando’s hands before he could be stopped. “It’s not even a good angle.” 

“Is there a good angle for an unsolicited dick pic?” 

“I guess not, no,” Schmidt said, deleting the app from Nando’s phone. 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎 

The stake-out turned out to be a bust. The wife came home alone, and sat at her desk for a couple of hours, doing her goddamned job, which happened to be event planning for a non-profit organization that was raising money for wildfire relief. It was the fourth day trailing her, and the most scandalous thing they saw her do was smoke a cigarette. Not healthy, but not divorceable behavior. When they reported their intel, or lack thereof, to the millionaire gremlin man they were working for, he seemed disappointed to learn his smoking hot philanthropist wife wasn’t sleeping around. He paid them handsomely, but Nando felt gross about it. From the sound of his sputtering about money and legal battles, it seemed like the Lex-Luthor-ass-motherfucker wanted out of the infidelity clause in their prenup. If they were both cheating, Nando imagined, he didn’t owe her anything if he got caught. If Nando slid photographic evidence of _his_ infidelity in _her_ desk at work, well, that was none of anybody’s business. 

Yes, true love was alive and well in Southern California. 

“Why do we always have to work for skeevy rich guys who suck?” Nando whined once they were back in the car for the thirty minute drive back to the office that would be two hours with traffic. 

“Do you know any skeevy rich guys who don’t suck?” Nando rolled his eyes. 

“Do we have to work for skeevy rich guys at all?”

“You know any not-skeevy, not-rich guys who want to shell out the big bucks to have two guys spy on people? I didn’t think so.” 

“It sucks. My life sucks.” 

“Well, things are looking up for you,” Schmidt said. Nando couldn’t see how. 

“In what way?”

“You have a date with a smokin’ hot guy on Saturday, and your ex-wife is gonna get so jealous she’ll wish she never left you.” Nando didn’t want to make Daniella jealous, and even if he did, he didn’t see how Schmidt would help him accomplish that. Daniella was whip-smart, well-read, cultured, and gorgeous. Schmidt was… hot? He’d probably interpret that as high praise. 

“That’s not what I’m going for.”

“Then what?” 

“I just don’t want to be alone at the thing,” his voice sounded sadder than he wanted it to. 

“That’s kind of adorable,” Schmidt said, and it wasn’t a compliment. 

Traffic wasn’t moving at all, so naturally Schmidt got bored. He filled the time complaining about Nando’s “dad music” playing at a respectable volume, and Nando immediately regretted letting the guy know he had a kid. He knew Nadia had gotten out of school when the Spotify account they shared switched from Hotel California by The Eagles to IDOL by BTS. Schmidt gave him a side-eye and grumbled about how it was not worse but not better. 

The K-pop music quieted in the car’s speakers as Nando’s phone pinged, then crescendoed back to its previous volume. 

_mom wants to know who your bringing to the wedding,_ Nadia’s text message read. No capitalization or punctuation, as always. Schmidt texted the same way. 

_*You’re,_ he corrected. It wasn’t a big deal, but he was dragging his feet to evade the question for as long as he could. He’d been evading the question for weeks, which explained why Nadia was texting him about it instead of Daniella. They were on plenty good enough terms for Daniella to send the text herself, but she was savvy, and she knew him well, so she knew Nadia had a better chance of a straight answer. 

_*you’re a dweeb, dad,_ she wrote back. Then, in a second message: _she needs a name for the place card._ Then, in a third message: _YOU’RE weeks late with YOUR response._

Nando dreaded everything that led up to this point in his life as he typed the seven letter name with no preamble or follow-up. 

_schmidt?_ Nadia wrote back. _no first name?_

“Hey, Schmidt?” 

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a first name?”

“Schmidt.” 

“Last name?”

“Schmidt.” 

“Schmidt Schmidt?”

“Just Schmidt. Magnanimous.” _Magnanimous? Doesn’t that mean, like, generous? Oh._

“Do you mean ‘mononymous’?”

“Tomato, tomato,” Schmidt said, pronouncing both words the same. 

_Just Schmidt,_ he wrote back. Nadia sent him an eye-roll emoji and hands making the ‘okay’ symbol. 

The next time traffic stopped completely, Schmidt looked over his shoulder and snatched the phone from his hands. Nando hoped he wasn’t going to make a habit of that. 

“You googled ‘what is cocktail attire for men?’ Are you stupid?”

“My idea of a ‘cocktail party’ is drinking a margarita in sweats on my couch while I rewatch Tuca and Bertie on Netflix. Sue me, I don’t own a suit.” 

“You’re hopeless. We’re going to my place now.” 


	2. Chapter 2

‘Now’ actually meant more like ‘an hour and a half from now,’ but they eventually made it to Schmidt’s big, fancy apartment, that looked like it’d been remodeled on one of those shitty interior design shows that Nando watched with Nadia and pretended to like less than she did. 

Nando had never been to Schmidt’s place before. It raised more questions than it answered about the mysterious, mononymous Schmidt. Even his mail was addressed to “Schmidt,” no first name. Or maybe no last name. What kind of first name was Schmidt? But what kind of guy had no first name at all? 

Schmidt beckoned for Nando to follow him. They walked through a door into Schmidt’s bedroom, the big California king bed made with military precision. Its massive size gave it an air of luxurious loneliness, which, Nando supposed, was a step up from the extremely un-luxurious loneliness of his own bed at home. 

Schmidt took his shirt off and pulled Nando into his walk-in closet, garments draping from hangers in rainbow order from wall-to-wall. Nando gave into the temptation to stare at Schmidt’s bare torso— broad shoulders and defined pecs, tapering to a slender waist. If being in the closet was always this sexy, Nando might not have hated high school as much.

“Get your shirt off,” Schmidt demanded. Nando sputtered stupidly until Schmidt reached forward to do the undressing for him, which snapped him out of the fog. No way was that happening. He swatted Schmidt’s hand and took his Semisonic band tee off, suddenly self-conscious about his body. Nando was usually pretty confident about his appearance, among nothing else about himself. He considered himself pretty solidly in Schmidt’s league, but he’d heard Schmidt call shirtless pictures of Chris Hemsworth “nothing to write home about,” so he wasn’t exactly begging to be scrutinized by the guy. Schmidt let out a hum that sounded like approval, and Nando was pretty sure it was the nicest thing he’d ever heard the guy say. 

“I think my clothes will fit you well enough. I mean, I doubt anyone expects  _ you _ to show up in a perfectly tailored suit, right?” It was an extraordinarily fair assessment of a guy who wore old black sweats and a 90s band tee to work that day, but it still felt like a crushing dig. Being insulted by Schmidt felt like being roasted by a fashionable teenage TikTok star, a reference he only had the knowledge to make because his daughter insisted he downloaded the app. So not only did he constantly feel old and irrelevant, he also probably had spyware on his phone. But sometimes he understood the things Nadia talked about, so it felt like a fair trade-off. 

Most everything Schmidt owned felt like rejects for the Met Gala, if this year’s theme was “embarrassing your thirteen-year-old daughter at your ex-wife’s wedding.” The first suit Schmidt picked out and held up against Nando’s body in the mirror was hot pink. It was a pretty immediate ‘no.’

“It would look hot on you,” Schmidt said simply. Nando’s cheeks turned as pink as the garment, or pinker. 

“Isn’t the point of wedding attire to not draw attention from the bride and groom?” Nando asked.

“Sure, if you’re a coward,” he said. Nando rolled his eyes. “First rule of being my date: the point of everything is to draw attention.” It was going to be a long wedding.

“Can we tone it down? Like, a lot?” 

“How about maroon? Dark enough, but not boring. Plus, it’s your favorite color, right?” 

“How do you know that?” Nando didn’t expect Schmidt to know any details about what he liked, even something as simple as his favorite color. That would require some level of paying attention, and Nando didn’t think Schmidt paid attention to anything that wasn’t on his cell phone. If Taylor Lautner didn’t Instagram about it, Nando didn’t think it was a blip on Schmidt’s radar. Maybe he was wrong. 

“You wear it all the time,” he said simply. 

“You pay attention to what I wear?” 

“Sure. It’s like watching a car crash, you know? Can’t look away.” That explained it. 

The maroon suit was nice, but it still felt more showy than Nando was comfortable with. The lavender in his hair, a bold decision he made that he insisted wasn’t part of a midlife (three-eighths life?) crisis, was already flashy enough. He wanted to fade into the corners of the reception hall, incorporeal like the ghost of Daniella’s past. The more Schmidt talked about the night, the less possible that seemed. 

“Do you have anything a little more boring?” 

“Come on, Nando. Try it on.”

“Why, when I know I’m never going to wear it?” 

“Don’t you want to feel like a million bucks for once? Instead of spare change and a Taco Bell coupon?” 

“I resent that.” 

“There’s hot sauce on your sweatpants, man.” Nando looked down. Schmidt wasn’t wrong, but he could be nicer about it. “Try the suit on.” 

Helpless against Schmidt’s withering judgement, Nando tried the suit on. It fit pretty well, or most of it did. The black dress shirt, maroon coat and pants fit nicely, anyway. The vest was too tight around his waist, which wasn’t as slim as Schmidt’s because no one’s was, so it was forgone. Nando wasn’t a three-piece-suit kind of guy, anyway. When he said that out loud, Schmidt scoffed and said “obviously,” and it was as lethal as a word had ever been. 

“You know, I’ve always said you’d be hot if you looked more like me.” That wasn’t a compliment by any measure, but a shiver went down Nando’s spine, anyway. Maybe it was Schmidt’s proximity to him— the way he looked at Nando in the mirror, his chin resting on Nando’s shoulder, and smoothed his hands down the side of the maroon suit coat. If he thought that he could get used to being this close to Schmidt’s shirtless body, feeling their bodies pressed together and smelling his cologne… no, he didn’t. 

Nando cleared his throat and tensed up. Schmidt moved back and sarcastically held his hands up in surrender. 

“Will you put a shirt on?” Nando asked. Schmidt looked down like he didn’t remember having been shirtless. Nando had been hyper-aware of it the entire time. Schmidt took a navy dress shirt from a hanger, and buttoned it onto himself excruciatingly slow. Nando wondered if it was on purpose, a sexy little reverse-strip tease. But his expression was blank and clueless to its effect. Nando looked in the mirror at his well-dressed self to avoid eye-contact. 

“It’s a nice suit,” Nando admitted. 

“Probably costs more than all the clothes you own put together,” Schmidt said once his shirt was on. 

“I don’t doubt it. Can I try one of those?” He pointed to a section of the closet with black and grey suit coats. Schmidt rolled his eyes.

“I’m putting a lot on the line here, being seen on a date with you. I have a certain reputation to uphold. I’m not going to have the whole world thinking my boyfriend is some basic bitch who wears a black suit with a white shirt.” Nando’s eyes widened at the b-word. Boyfriend, not bitch. He didn’t know he signed up to be Schmidt’s fake boyfriend. He was just keeping him company. 

“Boyfriend?” 

“Sure. We’re making your ex-wife’s family think you have your shit together, right? You want them to think you just brought some guy you work with ‘cause your genius Grindr plan fell through? That’s pathetic.” 

“It’s the truth.”

“The pathetic truth,” Schmidt said. Nando let out a breath. Schmidt had a point, which he hated. “Which is why you’re lucky to have me. I happen to be an incredible actor, and a very fucking impressive boyfriend.” 

Nando thought it over for a moment. Showing up with a coworker did seem a little lame. Nadia had been excited to learn he had a date. She kind of, almost, for a second, maybe, seemed to think that was cool. She’d probably think Schmidt was awesome. 

“Fine,” Nando relented. Schmidt could be his fake boyfriend for a night. They could fake break up the day after. No one would be surprised if Nando chickened out of a committed relationship when it got scary because weddings were involved. 

“Plus, people are attracted to the unavailable. You might actually get laid for real,” Schmidt said. That was wishful thinking. It had been a long time since Nando got laid. “Not by anyone as hot as me, but still. You need a win, Nando. ‘Been mopey.” 

“I have not been mopey,” he moped, mopily. 

“Right. What was I thinking?” 

Schmidt reluctantly pulled a charcoal colored suit from a hanger in the “boring corner,” and paired it with a white dress shirt. He handed them to Nando, sulking. Nando shook his head at the dramatic display, removed the maroon suit and replaced it with the dark grey one. Schmidt’s eyes didn’t leave Nando’s figure as he changed, but his expression didn’t give away what he thought about it. Nando decided that he didn’t care what Schmidt thought about his body. Or, he decided that he was going to lie to himself and say he didn’t care. 

They went through a couple of white shirts before they found one with room enough around the waist, but the jacket and pants fit. When the ensemble was all put together save for a belt and a tie, Nando looked pretty damn good. Schmidt was reluctant to agree aloud, but he conceded that it was a step up from what Nando usually wore. 

“Alright, you’re allowed to wear the charcoal suit,” he resigned eventually, “but you have to let me pick out a tie.” Nando’s eyes panned dreadfully to the revolving fixture of ties Schmidt kept as if his closet was a goddamn department store. There were some solid colored ties that Nando was drawn to. He’d be open to the nice dark red or even the lilac color that would match his hair, though he imagined Schmidt had something else in mind. 

“If I say yes, will you pick something I might like?”

“I will pick something that will look good on you,” he said, which was a ‘no.’ 

“Why do I feel like I’m being Queer Eye’d?”

“That’s offensive, I think,” Schmidt said, but he his smirk told Nando he wasn’t quite bothered by it. 

“What about that is offensive?”

“I’m not sure, but I didn’t like it. Make it up to me by letting me pick out your tie.” Nando sighed, feeling trapped, but not hating the entrapment. 

“Fine,” he said, resigning to the Stockholm Syndrome of it all. Dramatic as ever, Schmidt hummed and muttered and ghosted his fingertips over the broad selection of colors and patterns that made Nando tense up in anticipation. He must’ve stood there deliberating silently for five entire minutes. He landed on a purpley number with large, watercolor-esque flowers in shades of pink with leaves of green. ‘Flamboyant’ was the dreaded word Nando would use to describe it. “It’s a little… much.” 

“Exactly. Put it on,” Schmidt demanded, handing the explosive piece of fashion over. Nando worried his lip between his teeth and fidgeted a little. He looked expectantly at the tie, like if he willed it hard enough, it would coil itself around his collar like a snake and tie itself in a pristine knot. Schmidt furrowed his brow. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to tie a tie. Please.” 

“I, uh…” he didn’t know how to tie a tie. The last time he had to wear a tie, Daniella tied it for him. Yeah, he was that kind of divorced guy. He wasn’t proud of it. 

Schmidt shook his head disapprovingly and snatched the tie from his hands. He held the article from either end and swung it over Nando’s head, using it to pull him closer. Nando blushed at the sudden proximity, and prayed Schmidt didn’t notice. He didn’t seem to. He was focused on the task in front of him, working the floral material with practiced ministrations. Nando was breathing hard and blushing, looking anywhere but at Schmidt. Since when did his partner have this much of an effect on him? 

“There, you big baby,” Schmidt said when the tie was tied, “do you need me to tie your shoes for you, too? Button your pants?” Nando suppressed his body’s reaction to the mental image of Schmidt on his knees, those deft fingers working the closure of his slacks. Though, in his imagination, the pants weren’t exactly being put  _ on. _ He snapped himself out of whatever that was, and flipped Schmidt off. He hoped his previous assessment of Schmidt’s intelligence and general lucidity was correct, because anyone with half a brain would’ve noticed how flustered he suddenly was. Schmidt apparently did not. 

Schmidt picked him out a black belt. When the ensemble was all together, save for Nando’s mismatched, shoeless socks, they looked in the mirror again. 

“See? You can be hot. You just need a little push,” said Schmidt, apparently incapable of giving a compliment that wasn’t back-handed.

“Thanks,” Nando deadpanned. “So what are you wearing to this shitshow?”

“Hmm,” he pondered aloud, “I think I’ll leave you guessing. Gotta have a little spice in our relationship, right?”

“Not a relationship. Why did you change your shirt if you’re not trying on a suit?”

“Because. You’re taking me out to dinner tonight, and I’m not going to rewear the outfit I wore on a stakeout.”

“No one saw y— why am I taking you out to dinner tonight?”

“Because we’re dating. Keep up.”

“We’re fake dating. For one night. Saturday.” 

“And everyone is just going to believe we’ve been dating for long enough to go to a wedding together even though we don’t have any pictures together?” 

“So, what, we suddenly start posting pictures together two days before the wedding?  _ That’s _ not suspicious.”

“Obviously we weren’t going public before we knew what we had was real, Nando. But it’s our one month anniversary, and I think things have been going pretty well, don’t you?” 

“You’re really committing to this, huh?” Schmidt ignored the question.

“I can’t believe you forgot our anniversary.” His voice was angry, but his lips were smiling. 

“Fine. A dinner date, and an Instagram post. You’re kind of high maintenance.” 

“Oh, baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Let’s get you dressed up.” 


	3. Chapter 3

The outfit Schmidt insisted he wore on their date actually kind of... slapped. Or, that’s what Nando thought Nadia would say. When he said it out loud, Schmidt laughed and said “OK, boomer,” which was even more of a blow to his ego than it was when Nadia said it. 

The button-down shirt was yellow and floral, and it draped loose on his torso and tucked into his— Schmidt’s— dark grey slacks. The collar hung low enough to show off a hint of his tiger arm-tat whose tail was situated partially on his clavicle. The pinky-purple of the flowers brought out the purpley-pink of his hair, in a way that was subtle enough to look unintentional. He looked put-together, which could rarely be said. Schmidt’s dark blue dress shirt was tucked into black dress pants, and topped with suspenders over his shoulders.

That was as much as Nando had thought about fashion in probably his entire life, and it was exhausting. He was excited to get food, his area of expertise. 

They went to Cocina Rica, a Mexican restaurant that was a perfect balance of what the two of them were into. It was up Schmidt’s alley because it was expensive and the vibe was “Instagrammable,” and it was up Nando’s alley because they had nachos. Nando only wished he could eat those nachos instead of waiting for Schmidt to take a good picture of them.

“Do you prefer for your food to get cold before you eat it? Is that a preference of yours?” Nando sassed.

“You’re kind of a bitch when you’re hungry.” 

“Then let me eat.” Schmidt shushed him and took a few more pictures before he let Nando dig in. 

Nando was so invested in the nachos, he almost didn’t notice the quiet ‘click’ of Schmidt’s phone taking a picture. He made a grumpy face at the camera and flipped Schmidt off. When Schmidt’s obnoxious paparazzi bombardment didn’t relent, Nando finally gave him what he wanted and smiled, in hopes getting what he wanted would make him stop. It didn’t.

“The lighting in here sucks, and you don’t look cute when you’re eating,” he complained. 

“Who looks cute when they’re eating?” 

“Me,” Schmidt said like it was obvious. Nando didn’t doubt it. He kicked himself for the thought. 

“Can I eat in peace? We can take pictures after. We only need one to sell it, right?” 

“You need one for your story. Doesn’t your daughter follow you?”

“Yeah, but—” 

“Take one of me,” he demanded. Nando pulled his phone out. Schmidt posed without looking like he was posing, and Nando envied the apparent effortlessness. Schmidt, for the third time, yanked Nando’s phone away from him. He nodded in approval of the photo, typed something, added it to Nando’s story, and gave the phone back. Nando looked at what he’d done. 

“Happy one month, baby?” he read aloud. “I guess it could be worse.” 

“Check mine.” 

Nando clicked on Schmidt’s icon, and tapped through eleven photos of his entire day to the most recent addition. It was Nando flipping off the camera with a scowl, captioned ‘Happy one month, bastard.’

“Charming,” Nando deadpanned. 

“We’re adorable.” 

Nando’s phone pinged a couple minutes later. It was Nadia. 

_ one month???????????! _

He pondered what the right thing to say to that was. He didn’t like her thinking he’d been dating a guy for a month without telling her. He immediately panicked, deciding that she’d never trust him to tell her the truth ever again, and their entire relationship was over. She was never going to stay at his place on Tuesdays and weekends ever again, Christmases would go from every other year to every third year to never, and she wouldn’t ask him to walk her down the aisle at her wedding to whichever BTS member she intended to marry. He was drafting a strongly worded apology in his brain when his phone pinged again. 

_ good job keeping it on the DL. youre trash at keeping secrets. _

He breathed the biggest sigh of relief of his life. 

_ Sorry I kept him from you, honey, _ he wrote back. _ Can’t wait for you to meet at the wedding. _

_ i get it. boys are weird, _ she answered. _ have fun dad love you  _

God, he loved that little girl. He told her so, and put the phone away. 

There was no going back now that Nadia knew. They were fake-dating for real now.

“Everything good?” Schmidt asked. 

“Yeah, Nadia saw the post.” 

“Is Nadia the daughter or the ex?” 

“Daughter.”

“She okay?” 

“Surprisingly positive response.” 

“Good.” 

“She’s going to have questions.” 

“Then we should have answers. Where did you grow up?” 

“St. Louis,” Nando answered. “You?”

“Here. LA. What’s your zodiac sign?”

“I don’t believe in that garbage.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“I think I’m a Scorpio.” 

“That checks out. Siblings?”

“Older sisters, two. You?” 

“No. When did you know you had feelings for me?” That was… a different kind of question. 

_When you took your shirt off in your closet,_ Nando’s mind supplied involuntarily. _What?_

“I don’t know. I don’t,” Nando answered. 

“Lie.” 

“It was love at first sight,” he lied pathetically. 

“Bullshit,” said Schmidt.

“It’s all bullshit. We’re not really dating.” Schmidt put his head in his hands. 

“No one would believe it. We’ve supposedly been working together for five months and dating for one. It wasn’t love at first sight. Try again. When did you know?”

“Um… the day you remembered my coffee order,” Nando said. 

“I have never once gotten your coffee order right.” 

“Exactly.”

“You’re hopeless. People are going to see right through this, and it’s going to be embarrassing.”

“When did you know you had feelings for  _ me?” _ Nando volleyed back. 

“Knife dog,” Schmidt answered immediately. ‘Knife dog’ is what Schmidt still insisted on calling the stray Nando rescued months before. He wasn’t a  _ when _ as much as a  _ who. _

“Watson? What about him?”

“You rescued a stray dog that literally stabbed you with a literal knife, because it needed a home. And you fell in love with the thing, even though, and I cannot stress this enough, it likes to play with knives. I caught feelings the day you met him, and the rest is history.”

That was a real story. Schmidt had a real, factual answer to the question ‘when did you know you had feelings for me?’ Nando didn’t know what to do with that. It simply did not compute. 

“Convincing, right?” Schmidt said, casually impressed with himself as he always was. Right. A convincing lie. “A good lie is grounded in a kernel of truth. So, when did you know you had feelings for me?” Nando wracked his brain for a kernel of truth. 

“When you knew my favorite color, even though I never told you.” 

“Kind of lame, but fine.”

“I’m not the romance guy, okay? I’m not gonna tell you that I looked deep into your gorgeous eyes and I was moved to tears. But you paid enough attention to know my favorite color even though I never told you, and that’s… something.” 

“Good. I almost believed that.” Nando almost did, too. Fuck. 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

That night, Nando laid in bed, alone at last. Schmidt’s clothes were on his floor, in the least sexy way for another guy’s clothes to be on his floor. Not that he would want it otherwise. That would be ridiculous. 

He scrolled through the pictures they took on his phone. 

The first few were of Schmidt alone, looking casually, effortlessly cool in the low light of the restaurant. The top buttons of his dress shirt were undone, one suspender falling off his shoulder. He had a way of looking like he didn’t care what he looked like, while also being the most infuriatingly vain person on the planet. Nando supposed that a guy who looked that good had every right to know it. 

The next set of photos was from the gelato place they stopped at for desert, because Nando wanted ice cream and Schmidt insisted gelato was “more Instagrammable.” More Instagrammable, as it turned out, meant “worse.” The lighting in the shop was better, which meant more pictures. At the point when these photos were taken, they’d had a couple margaritas in them, so Schmidt’s smile was a little bigger, his cheeks a little blushed. Nando liked them better than the first round. He looked more real. He even stuck his tongue out in one, which Nando had never seen him do. It was cute, more than sexy, which was sexy in its own right. 

Then there were the photos of the two of them, and those churned up a whole lot of emotions Nando didn’t want to address. Schmidt apparently had no anxiety about having a stranger take photos of them being cute and gay in front of what he called “the perfect brick wall.” Nando didn’t know what was so perfect about it, but he wasn’t an expert in Instagram backdrops like Schmidt was. The lovely girl that helped them out had recognized Schmidt from his side-career as a famous Influencer, and was more than happy to spend upwards of a half an hour staging and snapping photos of them that she and Schmidt called “candid,” which made Nando question his understanding of the word’s definition. 

The selfies on the bench outside the gelato shop were where it got to be a little too much for Nando. At the end of the night, the alcohol working its magic on full blast, Schmidt sat straight in Nando’s lap and wrapped his arm around him, shushing his weak protests. He pressed their cheeks together and took a photo. He pressed his lips to Nando’s cheek and took a photo. He pressed their foreheads together, took a photo. He cradled Nando’s jaw in his hand, brought their lips so close they were brushing together, breathing each other’s air, and took a photo. He pressed their lips together, and Nando swatted the phone from his hand. 

_ “What the fuck, Nando?” Schmidt said.  _

_ “Me? You kissed me.”  _

_ “You could’ve broken my phone!”  _

_ “I panicked,” he justified. “Because you kissed me.”  _

_ “God, it was barely a kiss. Grow up.”  _

_ “Is your phone okay?” Schmidt got up out of his lap to pick the phone up and inspect it.  _

_ “It’s fine,” he said. “My ego’s a little bruised, though, fuck.”  _

_ “You poor thing.” _

_ They sat in awkward, fuming silence for a little while, Schmidt scrolling through his phone, Nando staring off into the distance.  _

_ “I’m gonna get a Lyft,” Nando eventually announced. “You wanna share?” _

_ “We’re going in opposite directions.” _

_ “Fine. I’ll see you Saturday, then?” _

_ “Fine.”  _

He didn’t feel good about that. Schmidt was right, it was barely a kiss. It was a chaste press of lips, more playful than anything else. It was the kind of thing that only had meaning if you assigned meaning to it. It only meant something because he wanted it to. He wanted to kiss Schmidt, and he wanted it to mean something. That was why it couldn’t happen.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. 

He needed them to be okay. He couldn’t have ruined a friendship he only just realized he cared about more than anything. He couldn’t leave it the way he did. He texted Schmidt’s number. 

_ Did you get home okay?  _ Nando had gotten home about an hour before, which meant Schmidt, whose ride was shorter, should’ve gotten home even longer ago. A check-in message, if one was needed, was pretty overdue. He didn’t have any suspicion that Schmidt might not have gotten home safely, but it was as good an excuse as any to text. 

_ yes mom, _ Schmidt texted back eventually. He didn’t say anything else. Nando didn’t know what else there was to say. 

He opened Instagram to Schmidt’s story, which picked up where he’d left off earlier, the photo of Nando with the caption that called him a bastard. There were three new pictures. Another across-the-table shot of Nando eating gelato, with no caption other than an ice cream emoji. A selfie against the brick wall, Schmidt’s head resting on Nando’s shoulder, with a sparkling gif of the words “date night.” Another selfie, one from the bench, Schmidt in Nando’s lap, smiling with their cheeks pressed together. Nando figured that one should be captioned “pics taken seconds before disaster,” but Schmando went with a sweeter approach: “happy.” 

Nando wished he could know how much of it was performative. He had to assume it all was. 

He visited Schmidt’s profile, feeling extraordinarily like a pining seventh grader. There was a new photo. It was one of the ones they’d taken on Schmidt’s phone, so he hadn’t seen it before. It was in front of the brick wall, but it wasn’t one of the ones they’d staged. Nando was looking a little bit grumpy and a little bit nervous, while Schmidt smirked sexily as always, but at him and not the camera for once. It was so essentially  _ them—  _ their dynamic boiled down into one photo. The caption, a song lyric, was so fucking corny it should’ve made Nando want to rip his eyes from their sockets, but instead it made his heart flutter in his chest. 

_ lucky i’m in love with my best friend _

Nando double-tapped the picture, but didn’t reply. He had to make a post of his own. He supposed this was the 2019 version of putting a poem in Schmidt’s locker.

He scrolled through his camera roll. There was one photo it had to be, the last photo they took. Almost kissing, like straight white people on the cover of a Nicholas Sparks novel. He gave it a caption from the same song and posted it. 

_ Lucky to be coming home again  _


	4. Chapter 4

Nando woke up on Friday to a text from Schmidt.

_ that corny pic i posted got like twice as many likes as i usually do. we should get fake married.  _

So that answered the question of whether it was performative. He’d known it was, but it still didn’t feel good to have the confirmation. 

_ I’m not marrying you for clout, Schmidt, _ he texted back. ‘Clout’ was a word he learned from Nadia. He hoped he used it right. 

_ prude, _ he replied. Nando didn’t know how refusing a fake marriage proposal was prudish. Maybe prudent.  _ i liked your pic. sexy. convincing. reposted.  _

That would explain why Nando had such an insane influx of followers. He’d figured it was something of the sort. 

_ Happy to help, _ he answered, not really knowing what to say to that. He liked Schmidt calling him sexy, though. Even if he had been half talking about himself. 

_ you busy today?  _ Yesterday’s uneventful, premature conclusion to their stakeout meant no work today. He planned on watching TV until Nadia got off school. 

_ I pick up Nadia from school at 2:45, but nothing until then.  _

_ so lunch date?  _ Nando supposed that meant Schmidt had no hang ups about their little falling out the night before. He blew out a sigh of relief and texted back an affirmative. 

Nando dared to check Instagram. His notifications were flooded with ‘likes’ and vapid comments from strangers. He sifted through them to find a reply from Nadia. 

_ ew dad, _ the comment read, followed by three purple heart emojis. He spoke her language well enough to know that was a positive message. He replied back with a heart emoji of his own, and then fussed with the app settings until he could only receive notifications from the three people he followed: Schmidt, Nadia, and Daniella. 

Schmidt posted a mirror selfie at the gym to his story, and Nando hoped he wasn’t becoming the kind of guy who compulsively checked his crush’s Instagram story. But apparently he was already the kind of guy who referred to Schmidt as “his crush,” so he was already probably beyond help. 

Didn’t he think Schmidt was a moron just yesterday? Didn’t his coworker get on his every last nerve with his vanity, irresponsibility, and lack of focus? Did those things just go away when he saw the guy shirtless? It had been a long while since Nando got laid, sure, but he didn’t think he was horny enough to fall for a guy who loved his Instagram followers more than he’d ever love another person. 

He had to snap out of it. It was fake. It was a performance. Nando was using Schmidt to save face at his ex-wife’s wedding, Schmidt was using Nando for Instagram likes. Only this and nothing more. 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

Nando had searched his entire apartment for an outfit suitable for Schmidt’s company. If Nando was looking for reasons to not have a crush on Schmidt, that was another one. He shouldn’t be petrified to face intense and unrelenting scrutiny for wearing the wrong thing to a last minute lunch date. If it had been anyone else, or any time before yesterday, Nando would’ve worn a tee shirt and sweats. Instead, he wore dark wash distressed jeans and a lightweight sweater that it was too damn hot for, and hoped it was good enough for the fashion icon he was apparently desperate to impress. He picked Schmidt’s clothes off the floor and put them on a hanger to return them, hoping it would look like he’d treated them more nicely than he did. 

He met Schmidt at the cafe where he’d dropped a pin. It was a quaint little place that Nando liked, that was a convenient distance from both of their places and comfortably near the Hot Guy P.I. office. When Nando entered the restaurant, Schmidt was already there, sitting in front of two plates of food. Nando sat down and looked over the lunch Schmidt ordered for him. It was exactly the panini he ordered every time they came, with chips on the side substituting for the couscous he hated, seasonal fruit that he only ordered this time of year, and two salted caramel macarons instead of his usual one. 

“How did you remember all this, but you can't remember I like my coffee hot, not iced?” 

“I remember your coffee order fine. I just think it’s stupid.” That was a revelation. First of all, Nando had been going out of his way to get his own coffee for five months because Schmidt was a stubborn little baby who thought hot coffee was for boring straight people. Schmidt’s words, not Nando’s. But also, Schmidt paid attention to him. Schmidt knew his favorite color, and his coffee order, and his lunch order at their cafe. Schmidt, who didn’t pay attention to anyone or care about anything, paid attention to him and cared about him. “You look good. I like that color on you.” 

“Thanks.” Nando made a note to wear dark green more often… or maybe every day forever.

“I didn’t know you owned clothes that weren’t tee shirts and sweats,” Schmidt added. It was slightly less backhanded than his usual compliments, which Nando filed as a win. 

“I got ugly Christmas sweaters, too.” Schmidt laughed instead of rolling his eyes, and Nando liked that. 

“Of course you do.” 

They only took two photos for the entirety of their lunch: one for Schmidt’s Instagram story and one for Nando’s. That was a revelation, too. Schmidt enjoyed his company enough to be off his phone almost the entire time. 

“How are you enjoying your newfound Instagram fame?” 

“I went from six followers to three thousand in one night. Do you know how many comments from guys saying they want to lick my feet?”

“How many?” 

“Well, only two. But it’s weird that it happened twice.” 

“That’s nothing,” Schmidt said. Nando wondered what his DM’s looked like, then resigned to the fact that he probably wouldn’t be able to stomach it. 

“I’m not used to it.”

“You’re hot shit, dude. Guys on the internet are going to want to lick your feet. It’s an unfortunate consequence of being a total fucking smokeshow.” Nando blushed. He really, really liked it when Schmidt called him hot. 

“Since when do you think I’m hot?”

“Since you started dressing like a hot guy.” 

“You mean since I started dressing like you?”

“That’s what I said.” 

“I can’t be hot in sweats and a tee shirt?”

“Sure, you can. It’s not really about the clothes. You don’t seem to think you’re very hot, which is insane. I mean, look at you.” Schmidt opened his phone to his lock screen, a picture of Nando from the gelato shop making a silly face and forming a little heart with his finger and thumb like Nadia always did in pictures. Always. Like, including her school yearbook photo. 

“I’m your phone background?” 

“Yeah. We’re dating.” 

“Right.” 

“Anyway. Being hot isn’t about having a pretty face and a great body. I mean, it helps that you totally do, but it’s not the main thing. You walk like you’re hot shit, and talk like you’re hot shit, and dress like you’re hot shit, people are going to think you’re hot shit. That’s like, biology or something, probably.” 

“It feels… inauthentic.”

“Nobody wants authenticity. People want believable bullshit.” And shit, if that wasn’t a window into Schmidt’s mind. All the pretty pictures told the story of a guy with a life everyone wanted. He barely did any work and made a whole lot of money. He had a gorgeous face and perfect figure that seemed effortless to maintain. His walk-in closet overflowed with designer labels, evident not only of excess wealth but of impeccable taste. His apartment looked like something out of a magazine or a TV show. But at the end of the day, his bed was as empty as Nando’s. He had “mutuals” instead of friends, and hookups instead of relationships. They were polar opposites in every way, but identical in their loneliness. 

“Is that why you posted that picture with the corny caption? Being in love with me makes you seem authentic to your audience?” That would explain it. Schmidt didn’t really need to post any pictures with Nando. It sold the lie, sure, but no one who would be at the wedding followed Schmidt on Instagram, and if anyone did, they would believe a lazy lie that posting pictures with Nando would ‘harsh his brand’ or something. But if it gave Schmidt attention, it made sense. 

“People want something to aspire to. It doesn’t have to be real.” Nando processed that. It made him sad. He dared to ask the question that was often on his mind. 

“What do  _ you _ want?” Schmidt looked at him like it was a stupid question. 

“Same as everybody else. To be loved.” 

“And having a lot of followers… that’s being loved?”

Schmidt didn’t answer. He shrugged and retreated back into himself, picking his phone back up and scrolling through it like Nando wasn’t there. 

So Nando had crossed the line. At least he knew where it was.

Then, as if he hadn’t been ignoring him for five minutes, Schmidt suddenly started paying a lot of attention to him. Like, too much attention. Get-up-from-the-table, sit-in-Nando’s-lap kind of attention.

“Dude, what?” Schmidt laughed like he said something funny and pressed his lips to the shell of Nando’s ear. His breath was hot and his voice was a sultry rasp. 

“Don’t look,” he whispered slowly, “but those girls in the corner are taking pictures of us.” Nando didn’t look. He didn’t think he could look away from Schmidt if he tried. 

“That hardly explains why you’re in my lap.” 

“People love to gossip.”

“Okay,” he said, going along with it. He didn’t really get what Schmidt’s angle was. They were on a date, which was proof enough that they were dating without having to make a big, public scene about it. But, like most of the ideas Schmidt had to ‘sell the story,’ Nando went along with it because he was exhilarated by the feeling of doing it. He liked Schmidt’s voice in his ear, the solid mass of his body in his lap. It had been a while since he was close to somebody like this. 

“Do you trust me?” Schmidt asked, the most terrifying question a person could ask. His hands were on Nando’s face, their noses brushing together. Nando had a pretty good idea of what Schmidt wanted to do. He wanted it, too, so he nodded, and Schmidt pressed their lips together. 

It wasn’t some intense makeout session, where sparks flew and they melted into each other like butter. It was lips brushing, closed mouths unmoving against each other, no tongues or spit swapped, and lasted only as long as it needed to for their paparazzi stalkers to photograph it. Nando melted anyway. 

“Thank you for not attempting to assassinate my phone, this time.” Schmidt said as he pulled away but didn’t leave Nando’s lap. Nando was too flustered to speak. He looked at his phone. 

“Fuck, fuck. I’m gonna be late to pick up Nadia. I’m never late to pick up Nadia. I’m gonna be late to pick up Nadia because I was on a fucking date. She’s gonna hate me. She’s gonna think I like you more than I love her and she’s gonna never want to talk to me ever again and Daniella is going to get sole custody and my entire life is over.” Nando’s brain tended to do that a lot. He went straight to the worst possible thing, and the worst possible thing was losing Nadia. It didn’t help that Schmidt was in his lap and iPhone cameras watched his every move. Perfect time for an anxiety attack. Schmidt furrowed his brow and almost immediately switched into a focused mode Nando had never seen from him before. 

“I’ll get you there on time, okay? It’ll be okay. I’ll drive.” 

Nando moved to the car like on auto-pilot as he hyperventilated. He didn’t even notice Schmidt was holding his hand until he let go. He didn’t even think about the fact that he was apparently taking Schmidt to pick up Nadia, which meant they’d be meeting for the first time. That is, until he did. Oh, shit. 

This was beyond a mistake. It was so beyond a mistake, Nando didn’t know how he could’ve possibly agreed to it in the first place. How could he play with Nadia’s emotions like this? The fact of the matter was, he hadn’t been thinking about Nadia at all. He was thinking about himself, and his desperation to feel whole. His loneliness, his jealousy, and— apparently— his longing to be close to Schmidt. What kind of father was he to put himself above her like that? 

Schmidt’s hand was squeezing his thigh the entire drive to the school. Schmidt had big hands. They were comforting. He almost relaxed. 

“We’re going to be on time, Nando.” 

“Am I an awful dad?” 

“Because you were almost, maybe late to pick up your daughter once?” 

“No. Yes. No. I’m not doing enough. I’m not stable enough. And now I’m bringing a guy into her life only to break up with him two days after she meets him? Because I don’t want her and her mom to think I’m lame and dateless? What kind of parenting is that?” 

“Do you want to tell her the truth?”

“No, that feels worse. She’s  _ excited _ about you.” Schmidt was pensive for a moment. 

“Then maybe we don’t break up after the wedding,” he eventually suggested, as if that wasn’t the biggest deal in the entire world. The idea of it made Nando’s brain malfunction. Or, further malfunction. It wasn’t exactly functioning well in the first place. 

“What? You mean keep up the lie?” 

“Sure. I mean, this is working, isn’t it? Your daughter thinks you’re cool, I’ve got a great new angle for Instagram, and…” he paused, and if Nando didn’t know better, he’d say he sensed insecurity. “We’re having a good time, right?” he asked quietly. Nando was having a good time. It was news that Schmidt was, too. Good news. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m having a good time.” Schmidt’s smile was small and to himself more than Nando. 

“So we keep fake dating.”

“I don’t know.” 

“You said she needs stability, right? Real dating’s unstable. Fake dating? We decide how it ends and when.” That seemed like kind of a good point, but Nando was sure he only thought so because he wanted so badly to justify keeping this up. 

“This is insane. It’s stupid, and insane.” _ But I want to.  _

“And fun. When’s the last time you had fun?” Nando didn’t know. A long time ago. 

“I have to think about Nadia first.”

“Of course you do. But you have to think about yourself, eventually.” That was really wise, actually. Who gave Schmidt the right to be wise?

“I can’t hurt her.”

“You’re not hurting her, you’re using her as an excuse. What else is stopping you?”  _ I don’t want to fall in love with you and I’m so afraid I already am.  _

“I don’t know.” 

“Come on, Nando. Fake-fall in love with me.” 

Fake-fall in love, but real-go on dates. Real-share clothes. Real-take pictures together and real-post them on Instagram. Real-text each other real late at night and real early in the morning. And, apparently, real-kiss. 

As much as Nando hated himself for it, he really wanted that. Real bad. 

“Okay.” 


	5. Chapter 5

When Nadia got in the car, she was pretty much starstruck. 

“How was school today, kiddo?” Nando asked. 

“Who cares? Introduce me to your boyfriend.”

“I always care how your day was.” 

“It was fine. I got an A on that math test, there were tater tots with lunch, Mrs. Katz still sucks, gym class should be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and Isabel says she has a boyfriend named Benji who lives in Canada but she’s never been to Canada and all fake boyfriends are from Canada, so suffice it to say I’m skeptical. Introduce me to Schmidt.” 

“Nadia, this is Schmidt.” Schmidt was smiling brighter than Nando had ever seen him smile. “We’ve been going out for a little while.” 

“A month, apparently,” she said. 

“Yeah, sorry about that.” 

“It’s cool. I’m proud of you for being, like, a tiny bit chill about anything for once.” 

“Gee, thanks,” Nando said. 

“Can we go to the mall?”

“You have to get to the wedding rehearsal before four thirty.”

“Boo,” she heckled, “I wanna hang out with Schmidt. And we have to go to Hot Topic because  _ somebody _ shrunk my BT21 shirt in the wash, so I need a new one.” As much as Nando was kind of dying to see Schmidt photographed shopping at Hot Topic, he wouldn’t hear the end of it if the flower girl was late to the rehearsal after he begged to be the one to drive her there. He picked her up after school every Tuesday and Friday because she hated taking the school bus. Usually that was convenient because the bus took her to her mom’s house, but he wasn’t going to let her down just because she wasn’t spending that weekend with him. 

“We can stop at Jamba Juice on the way there and hang out a little there. Maybe Schmidt will go to the mall with us on Sunday, if he’s not busy.” 

“Sure, maybe your dad will let me buy him some clothes without old people band logos on them.” 

“We’re basically the same age,” Nando protested. 

“How dare you imply I’m in my thirties.” 

“Dad makeover!” Nadia cheered. Schmidt smiled that genuine smile, and Nando was hopeless to turn either of them down. Dangerous. 

Nando was nervous all the way to Jamba Juice, but Schmidt and Nadia were getting along really well. Schmidt agreed with her that gym class was, in his words, a “war crime,” and asked her to tell him more about fake boyfriends being from Canada. He was really good with her. Nando was glad, but there was also a part of him that couldn’t help but think it would all be a lot easier if she hated him. They’d be able to break up, and she’d be happy about it. Instead, as she spoke to him, Nando could just about track the steps as her pupils turned from little dots to massive, bulging love-hearts in her eyes. And as Nadia fell in love with him, so, too, did Nando. 

Nadia liking him would make it hard for them to break up, sure, but Nando didn’t mind if it meant they didn’t have to. If fake-dating Schmidt meant spending this much time together, Nando thought maybe he could do it forever. 

When they got to the smoothie place, Schmidt ordered for him. Nando didn’t think he would ever get used to finding out that Schmidt knew the things he liked. 

“We’ll have a medium Amazing Greens, a medium Peanut Butter Moo’d, and whatever the little one wants.” 

“Large Mango-A-Go-Go, please!”

“Make that medium, please,” Nando said to the clerk. Nadia made a grumpy face at him. “You’re not ruining your appetite before the rehearsal dinner. Medium or small, your choice.”

“Fine, medium.”

While they were waiting, Nadia said:

“He knows your Jamba Juice order. That’s like, third base.” She was whispering to Nando, but Schmidt heard it and laughed. 

“I hope that you always believe that, my love,” Nando said back, trying to hide that he was also a little bit reeling that Nando knew his Jamba Juice order. 

When they got their order, Nando sat down at the table and silently, contentedly watched Nadia and Schmidt get to know each other. 

“Are you excited for the wedding?” he asked her. 

“Yeah, it’ll be cool. Sucks that I have to wear a pink dress, though. 

“You don’t like pink?” 

“I prefer black.” 

“Well, you are much cooler than me,” he said, tugging at the collar of his pink shirt.

“You make pink look cool,” she backtracked. 

“I bet you do, too.” 

“She does,” Nando chimed in.

“Don’t be weird, Dad.” 

“You should be nice to him,” Schmidt said, more like giving advice than scolding. “I hear being nice to your dad is very in style right now.” 

“Yeah, right,” she said, disbelieving. 

“It is. Do you think Billie Eilish is mean to her dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, rebellion’s cool, right? Going against the crowd?”

“Mhm,” Nadia nodded. 

“Let me tell you a secret, okay? Nando, close your ears, cool people only.” Nando rolled his eyes and covered his ears so that he could still hear. “There is nothing more rebellious than radical kindness. If you’re the most loving person in the room, you’re already the coolest. That’s why I like your dad so much. Never met anyone who loved harder.”

“He is pretty nice.”

“The nicest. Let me level with you. One day— and you can’t ever repeat this to anyone— I’m gonna stop being cool. I’m gonna get old, like, thirty-five, and people will follow somebody else on Instagram. But your dad? He’s gonna be cool forever. You know why?”

“Because he’s kind?” 

“Yeah. Because he’s kind first and hot second.” 

“My dad’s not hot.”

“Agree to disagree. But he’s kind.” 

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll be nice to him,” she decided. Then added: “sometimes.” 

“Fair enough.” Schmidt tapped Nando to signal he could listen again, and then kissed him on the cheek. Nando had to resist the urge to pull him in for a real kiss, and never stop kissing him.

“We should get going if we want to get you to the venue in time.” 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

“You’re good with kids. Who knew?” Nando said to Schmidt once Nadia was out of the car and being pulled by Daniella into the rehearsal venue. 

“Teens, I can handle. If she was a newborn, I’d have split.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, probably not. But I’d be less happy about staying. She’s a good kid.” 

“Yeah, she is. Did you mean all that about kindness?” 

“No,” Schmidt said, to Nando’s dismay. “There’s no way Billie Eilish is that rich  _ and _ nice to her parents. But I meant what I said about you.” Nando pushed down all of the overwhelming warm feelings that swelled in his chest, though everything Schmidt said made them harder to ignore. 

“You know you’re not gonna be out of style when you’re thirty-five, right?”

“I know. I’ll just decide being thirty-five is the cool new thing.” 

“Smart. Thank you for what you said. I don’t know why it’s so important to me that she thinks I’m cool. I’m just… so scared of losing her.”

“I know. I just don’t know why.” Nando took a deep breath. Schmidt was the last person he ever thought he’d vent to about his parenting anxieties, but he was turning out to be a lot more than a pretty face. He was kicking himself for not having a real conversation with him sooner. 

“Her mom’s getting remarried. She could have a real family.”

“She has a real family.”

“I mean… a together family. A married mom and dad who live together and love each other. What happens when that gets comfortable and I don’t fit in anymore? I can barely handle saying goodbye to her on Sunday nights when I know I’ll see her again Tuesday afternoon. I can’t lose that privilege.”

“Isn’t that a legal custody arrangement? Daniella can’t take that from you.” 

“She can’t and she wouldn’t. But it’s not about my right to have her. She’s not property. She’s old enough to make her own decisions, and if she decides that she’d be happier staying with her mom instead of being passed back and forth like luggage, I couldn’t get in her way, as much as I’d want to. The only thing I can do is make her want to stay.” 

“You’re doing a really good job of that.” 

“Thanks. Why does it feel like every move I make is the wrong one?”

“Because you have a teenage daughter. Also, you have anxiety.” 

“You can tell?” 

“A little.” 

“I’m working on it.”

“You’re doing a really good job.” 

“Do you wanna get dinner again tonight?” 

“A lunch date and a dinner date? What are we, married?” 

“Right, forget it,” Nando said, dejected. He was definitely coming off as clingy. “I just usually get dinner with Nadia on Fridays, and since—”

“Babe, I’m fucking with you.”  _ Babe!  _ “I can do dinner. I’m supposed to do a sponsored post for a new restaurant sometime this week, you wanna try it with me?” 

“Does that mean free food?” 

“If you take pictures with me, sure.” Nando didn’t usually love having his picture taken, but these days, a camera on him meant proximity to Schmidt, and sometimes a little kiss, so the concept was growing on him. 

“That sounds like a fair exchange.”

“And I get to pick out what you wear.”

“What I’m wearing isn’t good?”

“You look great. It’s just kind of a high-end place. And I like putting my suits on you. You’re like my little Ken Doll.”

“Yep, that’s me. Super hot and entirely dickless. Just completely smooth down there.” 

“Yeah? That’s not how I picture it,” Schmidt said wistfully. Nando’s brain short-circuited. Did Schmidt picture him naked? No. He was fucking with him. Like when he called him ‘babe.’ He was getting under Nando’s skin on purpose. It was working. “So do I get to put a suit on you?” 

“As long as it’s not hot pink.” 

“I’ll set up the reservation.” 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

The suit Schmidt chose for him was not hot pink. It was black with a dark green pattern that Schmidt called “Windowpane Check.” Nando called it plaid, and Schmidt looked at him like he’d said two and two made ten. Under it, he wore a black turtleneck. Schmidt wore a fully dark green suit with a white dress shirt underneath. 

“I still think it’s weird that we’re matching,” Nando said when they walked into the restaurant. They were greeted immediately by the establishment’s owner, personally escorted to their table, and assured that their entire meal was on the house. That included a bottle of very expensive wine, which explained why Schmidt preferred to take a Lyft whenever he went to a restaurant.

“We’re not matching, we’re coordinating. Looks good in photos.”

“You look like my prom date.”

“You wish I’d been your prom date. You would love to drunkenly tap this in a shitty motel room at three AM.”  _ Maybe. _

“In your dreams. So, how does this work? They give you free shit and you take a picture here and tell your three million followers their food is good?”

“I don’t barter, Nando. They pay me.” 

_ “And _ give you free food?” 

“Yes.” 

“That’s a sustainable business practice?”

“People trust influencers more than impersonal marketing campaigns.” 

“Even if they know you’re bullshitting them?” 

“They don’t, because I’m not. I don’t lie. They’re paying me to make a post. If it’s good, I’ll say something good. If it’s not, I’ll post a cute pic, tag the location, and say nothing.”

“Isn’t that a lie by omission?”

“No. If people see a hot guy eating at a restaurant and decide, uncoerced, that that means they have to try it out themselves, that’s on them. I just went to a place.”

“And got paid.”

“People get paid a lot more for a lot worse. I don’t endorse any weight loss bullshit and I do research on the companies I support. If I post a picture promoting a nice restaurant with a really sweet owner who pays his employees well, hires ex-cons, and donates regularly to campaigns to end homelessness in Los Angeles, and the food turns out to be a little less than good? I can live with those choices.”

“I… didn’t know all that.”

“You don’t know anything about me. You’ve assumed that, because I make money looking pretty, I don’t have a spine, a brain, or a moral compass.” Nando thought exactly that. He didn’t have a defense. 

“Huh. I’m an asshole.” 

“Well, I haven’t exactly been easy to get to know. I know I can be kind of… callous.”

“I like getting to know you,” said Nando sheepishly. “I should’ve tried harder, sooner.” 

“We’ve got plenty of time. Take a Boomerang with me.” 

Nando learned a lot over the course of the dinner. He learned what a Boomerang was, and that taking a good one was tedious and hardly worth the effort for a moving picture of clinking wine glasses. He learned how to use “portrait mode” on his phone, and that his right side was his good side and Schmidt didn’t have a bad side. He learned that Schmidt was really smart, even though he sometimes asked questions like “what kind of animal is the Pink Panther?” and occasionally took forty five minutes to spell the word “genius.” Despite all that, he had two Bachelor’s degrees, one in communications and one in marketing, and he was really good at math but never interested enough to pursue it. He learned that Schmidt actually cared about a lot of things, like minority representation in the beauty industry and ending homelessness in Los Angeles and sustainable, ethical fashion— all causes he opened his wallet for and used his platform to bring awareness to.

Nando learned that he was definitely, unequivocally, unstoppably, falling in love with Schmidt. 

They thanked the lovely owner, tipped the waiter considerably more than twenty-two percent of what they would have paid for the meal if it wasn’t free, and hailed the Lyft. While they waited, the owner had a hostess help take pictures of them in front of the restaurant’s sign, which Nando felt weird about, but he supposed it was better that it was someone who was getting paid than a stranger taking time out of their day to indulge Schmidt and Nando’s vanity. 

They took a couple more selfies after the hostess went inside. Nando liked taking selfies, mainly because it didn’t involve any of the anxiety of requiring the labor of a stranger, but also because it did involve more of Schmidt leaning in close to him, something he'd never tire of. Schmidt also took pictures of Nando alone, which Nando was starting to like, too, because it meant he said things like “that looks good” and “you have a nice smile” and “you looking fucking hot in my clothes.” 

Unlike the night before, this time they got in the same Lyft. Schmidt insisted they went back to his place, so he could confirm that his clothes were being treated nicely. Apparently, he could tell that the yellow shirt had been discarded in a pile on Nando’s floor, and he wouldn’t have his nice suit abused so flippantly. Nando had no objection to going home with Schmidt under any pretense.

🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍

“Let’s get you out of those clothes,” Schmidt said when they walked through his front door. Nando stared stupidly at him, his face turning pink. “Relax, Christ, are you that horny? I’m not flirting with you. You’ll know when I’m flirting with you.” Nando’s eyes widened as he failed to look chill about any of that. 

“Right, uh… Do you have something else I can put on?”

“Sure, prude.” Nando followed him to his bedroom. Schmidt searched through a dresser drawer for two pairs of sweats and two tank tops while Nando took his clothes off, save for his boxers. When Schmidt looked up, it was a scrutinizing gaze that burned like ultraviolet light on a Summer day, and turned him pink like a sunburn. “So, Ken doll, huh?” he said with a sassy voice, his eyes target-locked on the slight bulge in Nando’s shorts. 

“What? Oh,” he recalled the reference. “That was… that was a joke. I have… genitalia,” he sputtered pathetically.  _ Smooth, Nando. _

“Clearly,” Schmidt said, seeming something like impressed. He threw the sweats at Nando. “Cover up, you harlot.” 

“Am I a prude or a harlot?” 

“You really shouldn’t use such derogatory language, Fernando.” Nando rolled his eyes and dressed quickly. Schmidt undressed slowly. 

“Dude, are these Balenciaga?”

“I’m surprised you know what that is.” 

“I know it’s expensive.” 

“They look good on you.”

“They’re grey sweats.” 

_ “They look good on you,” _ Schmidt repeated, with his tongue in his cheek and another pointed look down. Schmidt wasn’t wearing a shirt. Nando was helpless when Schmidt wasn’t wearing a shirt. He took his pants off, too, and Nando was beyond helpless. Then he took his underwear off, and Nando wasn’t even sure he was alive anymore. Nando looked at his own fingernails, just to look at anything but Schmidt’s naked body. He could practically hear Schmidt’s smirk. Nando considered disappearing to the bathroom, but didn’t know how to pull off leaving the room without looking like he was going to masturbate. He also wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t be. 

When Schmidt was dressed, Nando was still looking at his fingernails. 

“You can look at me again,” Schmidt said, even more smug than usual. 

“I don’t know that I can.” Schmidt stepped closer to him, dripping in confidence. He tilted Nando’s chin up with a crooked finger, forcing eye contact. 

“Atta boy,” he said, all dominance. Was Nando into that? He felt like he was pretty into that. Then again, there was pretty much nothing Schmidt could say right then that he wouldn’t have been into. 

Schmidt switched gears instantaneously, completely unaffected.

“You wanna watch a movie?” 

“Uh… um,” Nando hesitated. The answer was yes, obviously yes, but it felt like crossing a line. They’d already crossed a line. Staying was dangerous, like crossing a line and setting up camp on the other side. 

“I figure you’re in no hurry to get home, right?” He wasn’t, but he didn’t want Schmidt knowing that. 

“Why?”

“It’s Friday night, Nadia’s not there,” Schmidt said, unexpectedly intuitive. Nando didn’t even know he didn’t want to go home and face his empty, Nadia-less apartment on a night she should be there, but he’d surely have regretted it once he did. 

“Right. Yeah. I can stay for a movie.”  _ Or forever. _

Schmidt smiled like he heard the voice in Nando’s head, and for a moment Nando wasn’t sure he hadn’t. 

Schmidt made popcorn while Nando panicked about being in Schmidt’s bed. He was getting in Schmidt’s bed. He was in Schmidt’s bed. He was getting under the covers in Schmidt’s bed. Schmidt would soon also be in Schmidt’s bed. It was kind of a lot. 

When he got back with popcorn in his hands, Schmidt seemed to have no qualms about being in his bed with Nando. He snuggled up close, and maneuvered Nando’s arm around his shoulder. 

“You know we don’t have to actually cuddle?” 

“Sure we do. We’re dating.” Schmidt took out his phone and snapped a photo for his story. Nando watched as he added a caption:

_ watching CATS (2019) with bae _

When the picture was posted, they didn’t stop cuddling.


	6. Chapter 6

Schmidt woke up in the morning with Nando in his arms. It had been a long time since he woke up next to someone. It felt like a lifetime. 

Schmidt was generally disinclined to let people get close to him. He learned at a pretty young age that he wasn’t very good at friendships or relationships or acquaintanceships or any kind of ‘ships, so he stopped trying. He found things were easier that way. He was more palatable from a distance.

When his Instagram started gaining attention, he basically retrained his brain to accept the serotonin rush of positive comments in place of actual human affection. He knew that was beyond unproductive, but he figured so was being excruciatingly lonely all the time, and the former was more fun than the latter. If people only liked him for his good looks, at least it meant people liked him. 

That worked for him for a long time. Who needs an inner circle when you’re a star? Who needs love when you have clout? It’s easier to be adored than to be valued. Schmidt could settle. 

Then, five months before, Nando came into his life and turned that worldview upside-down. Schmidt found himself hopelessly compelled to the man. He was hot, and funny, and had a loving energy that pulled Schmidt to him like gravity. Schmidt was desperate to be close to Nando, so he did what anyone would do, and kept an emotional distance the scope and depth of the Grand Fucking Canyon. He was mean, and mysterious, and always miles away. If Nando thought he was an idiotic, vapid asshole, it was because he was an excellent actor. (And if he sometimes didn’t understand references or had trouble spelling or didn’t know what the fuck was going on on a case or got scared of literally everything in the world, that was also  _ definitely _ part of it, without a doubt, for sure.) 

But then Nando needed a date to a wedding, and Schmidt made a series of very impulsive, very horny mistakes. He got sloppy. He let Nando get close, and really fucking liked it.

Schmidt suddenly wanted to be a person who lived outside of little boxes on iPhone screens. He wanted to exist in the moments between poses and photo-ops, in the laughter and the banter and the kisses and the tears. He wanted movie nights and shopping trips and Christmases and vacations. He wanted to wake up  _ every  _ morning with Nando in his arms. 

Fuck.

Nando looked precious when he was sleeping. Usually addled with anxiety, the calm of restfulness softened his features and made him look younger. The sight of the two of them cuddling would make a pretty photo. It was romantic— cute with a hint of sexy, real with a hint of ideal. People ate that shit up on Instagram. It was a million likes, easily, maybe two. If he tagged it just right, maybe a couple hundred new followers. 

That was the way Schmidt’s brain worked. He reduced his whole life down to how many double-taps it was worth to strangers on the internet. But when he was with Nando, he didn’t want to live that way. 

Schmidt didn’t take the picture. The memory was his alone to keep. 

Schmidt watched as the calm left Nando’s face as he crashed from sleep into wakefulness. 

“Shit. Did we do something stupid?” Nando asked. That was an interesting question. Schmidt was sure he meant ‘did we have sex?’ which told him two truths: one, Nando thought having sex with Schmidt was a stupid idea, but two, it was possible enough that they could have. Neither of them had been even close to drunk the night before. Nando thought it was a possibility that they would’ve soberly had sex. 

“Yeah,” Schmidt said, to rile him up a little. It appeared to work. “We watched ‘Cats.’”

“Right, yeah,” he said, the night coming back to him as he woke up a little more. “Bad decision.” 

“So, wedding day. How are you feeling?” he asked, changing the subject. He didn’t want to talk about sex with Nando. He wanted to have sex with Nando, but he was pretty sure Nando would reject him, and he didn’t want to be rejected by Nando. He could do the fake dating thing if it meant avoiding real rejection, even if it killed him inside to live in the freezing space between friends and lovers. He could keep holding on to the teasing flirtations and performative closeness. It was better than the distance. 

“I don’t know. Better than I was two days ago. Maybe it’ll be fun,” Nando said. Schmidt was pleasantly surprised. 

“I think it will be.”

“Uh, just a heads up, I’m probably going to get plastered.” 

“I’d expect nothing else.”

“I apologize in advance.”

“For what?” Schmidt hoped Nando got flirty when he was drunk. 

“I’m not sure. At the very least, my dancing.” He pictured Nando’s dad-dancing, and was already endeared. 

“Looking forward to it. Do you have to get home right now? Or are you down for date day three?” _ Please spend more time with me.  _

“I have to get home to Watson at some point. And pay my neighbor for babysitting.” 

“You mean dog sitting.” 

“Don’t let him hear you say that.” 

“What’s he gonna do, stab me?” Schmidt said, faking confidence, as if he wasn’t a little scared Knife Dog would actually stab him. 

“Maybe,” Nando said. He laughed as Schmidt shuttered, the sadist. 

“I have to get to the farmer’s market before it closes at two. Why don’t we go pick up Knife Dog and take him? It’s a dog friendly place.”  _ Please, please spend more time with me. _

“You hate Watson.”

“I do not,” Schmidt lied. Or, half-lied. He was terrified of Watson, but ‘hate’ was less embarrassing. “Plus, a hot same-sex couple with a dog? That’s good content.” Schmidt didn’t give a shit about the content, not really. He was right that the photo would be likable, and taking likable photos was his job, but he could take pictures at the farmer’s market alone, like he had basically every Saturday morning for years. What he wanted was to not say goodbye to Nando, without having to say that out loud. If it meant spending a couple hours with Knife Dog, well, call him a dog lover. 

“Right. Okay, the farmer's market sounds good. The little guy could use a day out. But I’m wearing comfortable clothes. No suits.” 

“No complaints here. I never mind watching you change,” he said, flirting casually and meaninglessly to cover his real excitement. If he got Nando flustered, he wouldn’t notice how flustered Schmidt actually was. With a lifetime of practice, he was excellent at camouflaging his emotions. 

“Why do you keep doing that?” Nando asked. 

“Doing what?” he feigned innocence. 

“Flirting with me.” Fuck, Schmidt had crossed a line. He thought he’d gotten good at walking the invisible boundary like a tightrope. But he’d gotten cocky and stumbled.

“I—”

“And don’t say you’re not, because I may have not gotten laid in a couple of…” he hesitated, “a long-ass time, but I do know what flirting is, and there’s no planet on which ‘I never mind watching you change’ is not a flirtation.” 

“Sorry,” he said pathetically. He didn’t have a game-plan for being called out. He didn’t think Nando had the guts. 

“It’s not… don’t be. I want to know why. I want to know if you’re just fucking with me, or if there’s something going on that I should stop before it goes too far.” 

There was the rejection Schmidt was trying to avoid. He should’ve known better than to be so heavy-handed, but he liked to see Nando blush. Of course that would be his fatal flaw. He had two options now. He could confess his feelings, which was a guaranteed rejection, or lie, and keep playing a game that killed him inside to play, but still let him be close to Nando. It wasn’t a hard choice to make. 

“I’m fucking with you.” 

“Good.” 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

The fake date at the farmer’s market didn’t feel like a fake date. They took a few pictures, but it felt more like capturing memories than fabricating them. It felt like a date. 

Despite his… distaste... for animals, Schmidt liked hanging out with Nando and Watson. What Schmidt lacked in love for dogs, he made up in love for the way Nando brightened whenever he saw one. The smile on his face was pure, unbridled adoration and happiness. Watson was the dumbest, most untrainable little shit in the whole wide world, but Nando treated him with kindness, patience, and duty like he was his child. Schmidt had a stupid, ridiculous thought about raising a family with Nando that he buried deep inside of himself forever and would never think about again, but it made him smile. 

Schmidt liked going to the farmer’s market because he always learned about new plants he’d never heard of, and he liked having Nando with him to playfully mock him for that. Nando gave him shit for being confused by the concept of mustard greens. Schmidt didn’t think that “since when is mustard a vegetable?” was that stupid of a question, but Nando’s laughter was comforting, even at his own expense. 

One of the sellers told them they were a cute couple, and Nando’s bashful smile when Schmidt said “oh, that’s all him. I just look cute by association” and kissed his cheek was the sweetest thing he’d ever seen. 

Schmidt learned a lot over the course of their farmer’s market date. He learned that mustard is made from the seeds of the mustard plant, but no, that didn’t make the condiment a vegetable. He learned that Nando had a very mild garlic allergy, but it just gave him headaches and he ate it anyways, because, in his words, ‘nothing’s gonna keep me from chicken adobo.’ And then he learned that chicken adobo was a Filipino food and that the Sy family was Filipino and that Nando’s last name was Sy, and his first name was actually Romeo. He learned that Nando and Daniella had Nadia when they were nineteen, and that Nando always called it a ‘miracle’ and never an ‘accident,’ because it was the best thing that ever happened to him. That part, Schmidt already knew.

Schmidt learned that he was definitely, unequivocally, unstoppably, falling in love with Nando. 

They were on a bench eating lunch from a vegan taco truck when the delicate facade Schmidt had worked so hard to build his entire life came tumbling down. He didn’t know what did it. Maybe it was the way Nando looked at him, or the way Nando looked at his dog, or maybe it was just the way Nando looked. But Schmidt couldn’t take it any longer. 

Nando was talking about something he read on a dog parenting blog— that’s what he called it,  _ dog parenting— _ when Schmidt leaned in and kissed him. Not a chaste, meaningless press of lips for the camera, not a stage-kiss or a performance for the crowd. He closed his eyes, pulled Nando in by that stupid tee shirt, and kissed him with the intensity of a dam breaking. They were waves crashing into each other, at long last. Schmidt had thought the pressure had been building for three days, since the moment they agreed to play this crazy fake-dating game. He was wrong. The water had been rising behind that dam since the moment they met five months before, and kissing Nando was as natural and inevitable as a coursing river. 

Knife Dog, the little bastard, barked his wretched bark, and Nando’s eyes flew open like waking up from a spell. He looked around, presumably to locate the camera on them, but there wasn’t one. 

“That was…” Nando started, at a loss for words. Schmidt could think of plenty. Spectacular. Magical. Erotic. Overdue. The first of many, hopefully. “...inappropriate.” 

“Oh.” 

“I’m sorry,” Nando said, and Schmidt couldn’t read the expression on his face.  _ Disappointment _ was his best assessment. “It’s not—”

“If you say ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ so help me God, you’re fired.” 

“It’s not a good idea.”  _ Why?  _ Schmidt took a deep breath, and then lied through his teeth. 

“You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. Caught up in the moment, you know? Guess I’m such a good actor I believed my own lie.” Nando’s smile was small, awkward, and fake. Neither of them believed him. They sat in silence for a little while, neither looking at their phones, neither looking at the other. Every once in a while, one of them opened their mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the words. Schmidt finally had the last word. “I gotta get a couple more things to get before they close up shop here. You should take Watson home, I’ll get a Lyft.” 

“What about the wedding?”

“You wanna come over and get ready at four-thirty, we’ll leave at five?” Nando looked relieved, like he thought Schmidt would chicken out of their commitment. He wouldn’t do that. He’d want to, but he wouldn’t. 

“Okay.”

“We should Lyft there. I think I’m getting plastered, too.” 

“Yeah.” 

They went their separate ways, and Schmidt swore to himself he’d never sit on a bench with Nando again. That shit was bad luck. 

Schmidt spent the entire Lyft ride home wishing he could go back in time to three days before.


	7. Chapter 7

Schmidt had kissed him. 

Schmidt had kissed Nando, the thing Nando had been craving for days like his body craved air and blood and organs and whatever, and Nando… chickened out. 

Nando had been considering aloud the pros and cons of using one of those high-pitched noise makers that only dogs could hear to get Watson to stop barking in the middle of the night every time Nando got up to get a snack. Schmidt had suggested he stopped getting up to get snacks at three o’clock in the morning, but that was preposterous, and Schmidt should know better than to make such a stupid suggestion. Nando had read on a dog mommy blog that the noise-maker thing worked wonders and was humane, but he questioned the humanity of making a super loud, high-pitched noise in your dog’s ear. Nando would be pissed off if someone banged a gong every time he wouldn’t shut up; he wasn’t stoked about doing the equivalent to his sweet baby boy. He was saying all this to Schmidt when Schmidt kissed him. 

When Schmidt pulled him in by his tee shirt and pressed their mouths together, Nando was helpless not to lean into him. His brain shut down and he succumbed to the miraculous sensation of being kissed by the world’s most handsome man. The world floated away— all his anxieties about work, the wedding, Nadia, everything— and they kissed like nothing mattered, because nothing did. 

And then Watson barked, and the world came crashing down on him like an avalanche. He was kissing Schmidt. Schmidt, who was more than just the world’s hottest man. Schmidt, who was his best friend, his only friend that wasn’t his daughter or ex-wife. Schmidt, who was his coworker, who he had to work with every day, even after everything went terribly wrong. Which it would. There wasn’t room for wishing it wouldn’t. It would. 

The sequence of events played out in Nando’s mind like dominoes falling… into lava. Schmidt would kiss him, and he would kiss back. They’d make out like teenagers on a public bench at the farmer’s market, their tacos abandoned to fall to the ground. (Watson would like that to happen.) They’d get into the car. Have sex in the car? No. They’d wait until they were at Schmidt’s place, after a sexy, suspenseful car ride— thirty of the longest minutes of Nando’s life, exchanging lustful, expectant glances with Schmidt’s big hand on his thigh. Nando would claw hungrily at Schmidt’s clothes as they made out against the wall of his apartment building before they could even so much as make it upstairs. Schmidt would be smoother an operator. He’d shush Nando, his voice a dulcet tone in his ear, and make him wait patiently until they got to his apartment. 

They’d have sex, and it would be perfect. There was no way in hell Schmidt wasn’t an incredible lover. He’d know just what to say, just where to touch, just what Nando needed. They’d fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces, Schmidt built exactly to fill Nando’s negative space. Every way in which they were opposites would compel them to each other like magnets. 

And then they’d go to the wedding, real boyfriends, not fake ones. They’d dance together, on top of the fucking world, and Nando would be happy for Daniella and not jealous or nostalgic or drunk off his ass and embarrassed. They’d go back to Schmidt’s place and make love again, wake up in each other’s arms again. 

They’d go to the mall with Nadia, and slowly or quickly but inevitably, Nadia would fall as in love with Schmidt as Nando had, and they’d be something like a family. 

For a little while. 

But eventually, maybe days or maybe months or maybe years in the future, it would fall apart. Nando would fuck it up, and lose Schmidt, lose their family. Nando couldn’t do that to Nadia. No, it wasn’t about Nadia. Schmidt was right, Nadia was an excuse. Nando couldn’t do that to himself. 

So when Schmidt kissed him, Nando pulled away, and pretended it didn’t shatter his heart to have to. He would rather be Schmidt’s friend forever than his lover for a little while. He could only hope he hadn’t fucked the friendship up, too. 

Nando spent the real car ride home— not the sexy imagined one— losing his mind to Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morisette without anybody’s hand on his thigh. Watson tried a couple of times, but he was leashed to the passenger’s seat belt. Nando appreciated the effort, anyway. 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

He had to be at Schmidt’s place soon, and Nando was freaking out.

He understood that what he did next was juvenile. He could hear Nadia’s voice in his head telling him it was juvenile, and she was thirteen. But he had to do something to reach Schmidt before they had to see each other again, and he was far too chickenshit to text or call. So he did what any reasonable high schooler would do, and he posted a picture of them on Instagram. 

It was a cute picture from the farmer’s market before everything went to shit. Schmidt was holding Watson and pretending to like him. When questioned, he said, “sure, I don’t like dogs, but I’m not, like, out of the closet about it, are you kidding me?” and made Nando promise to take the secret to his grave, lest he tarnish his pristine reputation. Nando was smiling next to them, like they were one big happy family. He captioned the photo:

_ You’ve already won me over in spite of me _

_ Don’t be alarmed if I fall head over feet  _

Schmidt responded almost immediately, with an old man emoji, a corn emoji, and a two-guys-kissing emoji. Nando had to assume those were entirely random choices, because it was incoherent. It looked like the way old people pretend teenagers talk in TV shows and alarmist posters about texting and driving. Nando replied with a question mark, though he could sense Schmidt’s eye roll over the miles of distance between them. 

_ i’m not old enough to understand that reference, _ Schmidt’s reply read,  _ but i know it’s corny. and still love you anyway.  _

_ And still love you anyway  _ sent Nando in a tailspin, but he knew Schmidt only said it because it was a public post. They were still playing a game. Right. 

_ But you’re old enough to know it’s an old reference, _ he messaged back.

Schmidt replied: _ no but i’m young enough to google it. alanis morissette, really? are you 40? _

But then Schmidt posted the song to his story and mentioned Nando in it with a heart emoji, and Nando thought maybe they were okay. 

  
The picture Schmidt posted from their date was a silly one, one of the ones Nando liked the most, but Schmidt rarely allowed in the public eye. They looked cute. Happy. In love. The caption was  _ “I’m alright with the slow burn” _ which Nando looked up to find it was from a Kacey Musgraves song. Nando listened to the song, but it didn’t say much. He’d been hoping for some meaningful clue as to what the fuck was going through Schmidt’s head, but “Slow Burn” wasn’t even really a love song. Nando’s lyric, from a song about falling in love despite not wanting to, because he met a guy that was too good not to fall in love with, was autobiographical. It explained exactly how he was feeling. Schmidt’s caption read more to him like just a caption, the same empty drivel he always posted under his photos. 

_ You’re going to have to make me a mixtape,  _ he typed in response, because he couldn’t abandon the measly connection they’d created. _ I clearly don’t know enough mainstream pop music. _

_ you're cute, _ came the reply. Nando really needed to talk to Schmidt privately. He couldn’t know what was real and what was fake on a public platform. But he feared that taking the conversation elsewhere would reveal it was still all smoke in mirrors, and wasn’t ready to face that truth. He preferred to live in the illusion. 

_ Cute like ‘take you home’ cute or ‘put you in a home’ cute?  _ he joked. 

_ both,  _ Schmidt replied with a winky face. 

_ Gross.  _

Then Schmidt posted a song to his “close friends only” story. Nando didn’t know he qualified for that. He recognized the song, and if it was because Rachel sang it on Glee, no one had to know that. 

_ I’ve always lived like this, keeping a comfortable distance. And up until now I had sworn to myself that I’m content with loneliness, ‘cause none of it was ever worth the risk. But you are the only exception.  _

Maybe the two of them were a lot more alike than Nando thought. 

Fuck it, he called Schmidt.

“A phone call? Is it 1994?” Schmidt said instead of ‘hello.’

“I wanted to talk like men and not like jukeboxes.” 

“Jukeboxes? Is it 1954?” 

“Fine, like… fucking iTunes, I don’t know.”

“iTunes? Is it 2004?” 

“Schmidt.”

“I don’t know what you want from me.” 

“Can we start with some fucking honesty?”

“I’ve been more than honest, Nando.”

“I can’t tell what’s real and what’s for Instagram.”

“I never lie on Instagram. I told you that. I tell the truth or I say nothing.” 

“So, ‘lucky I’m in love with my best friend?”

“Truth. Though I don’t feel so lucky about it anymore.” Nando didn’t know what to do with that. Schmidt was in love with him? He should be happy about that. Instead, he was scared. 

“And ‘I’m alright with the slow burn’? That’s... nothing?” 

“No, that’s true, too.” 

“What does it mean?” Nando could hear a frustrated sigh. 

“It means I can wait.” 

“What?” 

“It means... I can post song lyrics on Instagram, and go on fake dates, and take your daughter to the mall because you shrunk her shirt, and whatever the fuck else you need me to do. I can keep pretending as long as you need, no matter how much it kills me everyday to not get to kiss you for real. What I can’t do is lose you because you’re too scared to admit this isn’t fake anymore, and maybe it never was. So I’m okay with the lag time.” 

“And what if I can’t… ever…” Nando started, but didn’t know how to finish.  _ What if I can’t ever tell you the truth?  _ was too telling. But _ what if I can’t ever love you back?  _ was cruelly misleading. Schmidt didn’t make him finish the sentence. 

“Then I get to spend forever pretending, which is better than not having you.” That was… sad. Really sad. What’s sadder is that Nando had been thinking the same thing the entire time, he just hadn’t had the guts to say it. 

“You deserve better than that.” 

“I deserve to get what I fucking want. You’re what I want. And if I can’t have you, well then, just hanging out with you is great, too. I want that, too.” 

“Okay,” Nando said. He was an asshole. Truly, undeniably the worst person alive. He should’ve told Schmidt the truth, that he loved him so, so much and wanted him so, so bad but was just too afraid to pursue it. Or, were he a selfless man, he’d end things there and let Schmidt find real happiness somewhere else. But he was an asshole, just a cruel and nasty little person, and he wanted to spend forever pretending with Schmidt. So he said, “okay. I should get going if we want to be at the wedding on time.” 

“Okay.” 

He hung up. 

Nando listened to The Only Exception on repeat the whole way to Schmidt’s. 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

Schmidt was already dressed when Nando got there. His suit was a sight to behold. It was navy, with a matching colored tie and a baby pink dress shirt under it. It was covered, completely, in a floral pattern, a similar pink to the shirt. He was wearing fingerless gloves as usual, and Nando was pretty sure there was a little rouge under his eyes. He looked good, which was never surprising. If Schmidt didn’t look good, Nando would assume hell had frozen over.

“You look…” Nando started, but didn’t know what the right compliment was for your fake boyfriend who was in love with you and didn’t know you were in love with him, too. 

“I always do,” Schmidt said, and it didn’t matter what he was going to say. “You look like a gym coach after hours, as always. Get your suit on.”

Nando put his suit on in the closet. It was less fun without Schmidt’s eyes on him. When he emerged dressed, he was met with a wolf-whistle, and he was pretty sure it was the only time in the whole of history when a wolf-whistle was comforting. For Nando, it signaled a return to normalcy, or something like it. Casualness. Nando could handle casual. If Schmidt was willing to pretend the events of that morning never happened, Nando was willing, too. 

“Am I allowed to tell you you look fucking delicious in that suit? Or do we have to pretend I don’t think so?” 

“I like it when you compliment me.”

“How very egoistic.” 

“So I like it when the hottest guy in the world calls me ‘delicious.’ Sue me.” Schmidt was smiling, bright and genuine, and it made Nando smile, too. Nando would always envy Schmidt’s ability to bounce back, cool and collected, from anything that happened. (Well, emotionally, anyway. One time Schmidt was startled by a frog and he still didn’t forgive the entire species for it, but emotionally, he could take a hit.) “So are we gonna be okay?”

“I think we already are.” 


	8. Chapter 8

The wedding ceremony was short and sweet and absolutely beautiful. Nando didn’t once picture himself up there with Daniella, which he’d worried for weeks would be all he did. Instead, he pictured himself with Schmidt. It wasn’t better. 

Daniella looked stunning in her gown. She’d matured since he’d last seen her in a wedding dress, and it looked good on her. She walked with a stunning confidence that Nando envied. Age had not graced him in the same way. 

“You didn’t tell me she was way out of your league, dude,” Schmidt said, sounding excruciatingly heterosexual. 

“You didn’t ask.” 

“Do you always punch above your weight class?” Nando looked Schmidt pointedly up and down with his tongue in his cheek. 

“Yes,” he said, and there was no disguising the flirtation in it. Schmidt elbowed him. 

“You’re hotter than the new hubby, though,” Schmidt flirted back. 

“But he can give her what she needs.” 

“Gross. Like sex-wise?” 

“No! I don’t have any problems—” Nando protested. Schmidt raised his eyebrows, smirking. Nando composed himself. “No. I meant, like, being loved and shit. Daniella and I are great as friends, but she deserves more.”

“Look at you, all evolved. I kinda thought you’d get drunk and object to the union.” 

“No objections here. Definitely still gonna get drunk, though.” 

“Good. I want to see you dance.” 

“You’ll regret saying that.” 

“Schmidt!” Nadia exclaimed as she saw them. 

“Nadia! Don’t you know you’re not supposed to show up at a wedding looking prettier than the bride?” 

“Stop,” she said, blushing and drawing out the vowel sound in a flattered groan. 

“You didn’t do this dress justice when you described it. It’s stunning.” 

“Stunning-ly pink,” she said in a grumpy voice. 

“It’s a good look,” Schmidt said. “But, between you and me, I think it’d be better in black, too.” 

“That’s all I’m saying.” 

“Nadia,” called a voice from behind them, “introduce me to your new friend.” 

“Mom, this is Schmidt. Dad’s  _ boyfriend.” _

“The beautiful bride. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Schmidt said. 

“And I’ve heard  _ nothing _ about you. Fernando, how do you date a guy for a month and I only find out about it on Instagram two days ago?”

“I was dying to tell you,” he lied.

“That’s on me,” Schmidt lied, and was better at it. “I was nervous about making a big deal about it before we knew it was real. Speaking from experience, coworker romance gets complicated quickly. Fernando humored me by keeping it secret.” Nando kind of liked it when Schmidt called him Fernando. There was something sexy about it he couldn’t place. Though, he worried it might cause a very unfortunate Pavlovian response. If his dick twitched every time he heard his own fucking name, that could be a problem. 

“You? Keep a secret?” Daniella asked Nando. 

“It was important to him.” 

“Well, honestly, I was disinclined to believe this was real. I mean, Fernando was really weird about coming to this alone, and it’s pretty convenient that he found a boyfriend just in time when he hasn’t been L-A-I-D in probably over a year, but I’ve never seen anyone look at someone the way he looks at you when you’re not looking, so maybe that’s on me for being a pessimist.” Schmidt was honest-to-God trying to figure out what that spelled, while Nando was having a very tiny internal panic attack about Daniella calling out the way he looked at Schmidt. 

“Mom, I’m thirteen. I can spell. What does ‘been laid’ mean?”

“It’s like… getting a boyfriend,” she covered, nervously. 

“I hope I get laid soon.” Daniella and Nando grimaced. Schmidt laughed. 

“No you don’t, sweetie, don’t say that,” she sighed, shook her head, and returned her focus to Schmidt and Nando. “I’m happy for you two. I have to go talk to a million people who are less fun to talk to, but I’ll try to circle back.”

“You’re old enough to know what getting laid means, aren’t you?” Schmidt asked Nadia once Daniella was safely away. Nando elbowed him, and he shrugged innocently. 

“Yeah, but that was funny,” she said. Schmidt high-fived her. 

“Don’t encourage her,” scolded Nando. “Nadia, can you try not to give your mom a heart attack on her wedding day?” 

“I can try, but it’ll be boring,” she said. “So, over a year, huh?” Schmidt lost his shit laughing, and Nando turned so pink he was almost purple. 

“Yeah, that’s how long you’re grounded for. Go bother your lola.” She giggled and left them alone. 

“A year, Fernando?”

“I don’t tell Daniella every time I get laid.” He might, if he ever got laid. 

“But…”

“‘Over a year’ is generous in its vagueness.” 

“That explains why it’s so easy to get you riled up.” 

“No, I think you just have that effect on me.” 

“You’re flirting with me,” Schmidt stated the obvious. Nando had been. It definitely made him a horrible person to reject Schmidt so coldly and brutally just that afternoon, and then turn around and flirt so blatantly that evening, but it had been so easy to fall into their old pattern. It felt like having his best friend back. 

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind it. I get off on hot guys playing with my emotions,” Schmidt said. Nando knew he shouldn’t indulge that. He also knew he was going to. 

“Yeah? What if I told you… you look crazy hot in that suit?” he flirted in a sultry voice. 

“Tame. I look crazy hot in everything,” Schmidt asserted. Nando hummed an affirmation. 

“You’re right. What if I told you… that pretty suit would look so much better on the floor?” 

“Mmm. Better. Now rip my heart out and stomp on it, and I’m yours.” 

“Let’s go find our place cards. I’m sure we’ll break each other’s hearts eventually.” 

“I’m horny just thinking about it.” 

They found their place cards. In swooping, hand-done calligraphy, they read: 

_Romeo Fernando Sy_ and _Schmidt Sy_

“Schmidt Sy,” Schmidt read. “Sounds awful. We should not get married.” 

“I was thinking I’d be Romeo Fernando Sy-Schmidt,” joked Nando, trying not to imagine, once again, walking down the aisle toward Schmidt. 

“It’s very… modern.”

“Just awful,” Nando laughed.  _ I’d marry you anyway.  _

“Are you gonna dance with me, Mr. Sy-Schmidt?” 

“Get me a drink and we’ll talk, Schmidt Sy.” 

He had a drink. 

He was eating dinner next to Schmidt, and it was perfect. He wanted to be next to Schmidt for the rest of his life. They bantered back and forth like a tennis match, cute and casual and flirtatious and… fake. Schmidt’s words from their phone call flooded into his brain. 

_ I can keep pretending as long as you need, no matter how much it kills me everyday to not get to kiss you for real. _

Schmidt was keeping up a cool facade while he broke down inside, and Nando was the one doing the breaking. Every quip and wink and flirtation was another punch in the gut. Nando was feeling the pain of it, too. He didn’t know if the pain was his or Schmidt’s, but it hurt the same. 

A drink turned into two drinks. 

He was dancing with Schmidt, their bodies close together and so perfectly in sync. It was a synchronicity that couldn’t be manufactured, two bodies that belonged together moving as one. If their connection had been hard to deny before, it became impossible then as they moved on the dance floor like the only two people in the room. 

_ What I can’t do is lose you because you’re too scared to admit this isn’t fake anymore... _

Two drinks turned into three drinks. 

They were taking silly photos in the photo booth, with stupid props and without a care in the world whether they looked good. Schmidt, who cared more about how he looked in pictures than any adult Nando knew, was sticking his tongue out, puffing his cheeks, crossing his eyes, and even flipping off the camera like a teenager. Instagram be damned, they were having fun. 

_ This isn’t fake anymore and maybe it never was. _

Three drinks turned into four drinks. 

_ I deserve to get what I fucking want. You’re what I want. _

Nando lost track of the drinks. They did nothing to drown out the echoing voice in his head. He needed Schmidt. The only thing he’d ever needed was Schmidt. He needed Schmidt’s voice in his ear, Schmidt’s hands on his body, Schmidt’s tongue in his mouth. 

He located Schmidt, who’d been next to him the whole time, because that was where he belonged. He pulled him outside of the reception hall for some privacy. He stopped pulling when no one was around, but he could still feel the music booming like a heartbeat under his skin. Maybe that was his own heartbeat. Maybe both. 

“Do you want to have sex in the coat closet?” he asked with urgency. 

“You’re drunk,” Schmidt informed him. Nando looked down at his untied tie, then blinked up at Schmidt. 

“It appears to be so,” he said matter-of-factly. That didn’t change what he needed. 

“I’m not having sex with you trashed.” 

“Such a gentleman,” he rolled his eyes. Nando wasn’t ‘trashed,’ he was alive. For the first time in a long time. “Okay, compromise: we can just make out in the coat closet.” 

“No.”

“Okay, new compromise. No coat closet, we make out here.”

“No.” 

“Don’t you want me? Thought you wanted me.”

“Thought you didn’t want me.”  _ He did? How could he think that?  _

“Don’t be stupid. I want you like I want… to come up with a good metaphor right now. I don’t know. There’s nothing I want like I want you. Never has been.” 

“Then you’ll still want me when you're sober.”

_ “Obviously. _ But sober-me is scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of what happens when he fucks it all up like he fucks everything else up. That guy sucks. Don’t fuck that guy. Fuck me. In a coat closet.” 

“Not happening. So, wait a minute,” Schmidt put his hand on Nando’s shoulder to calm him, but it had the opposite effect. Schmidt’s hand on him was an electric current that ripped through his body. “We can never be together because you think you’ll fuck it up?”

“Not me,” Nando insisted. Schmidt rolled his eyes, but it was an important distinction. Right now, he was a different person. He was bold and unafraid and would fuck or date or marry Schmidt in a heartbeat. If he regretted it in the morning, that was the other guy’s problem. 

“Sober-you.” 

“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about that now. I want your hands on me.” 

“Not when you’re drunk. Talk to me. You’d rather not try?” Nando rolled his eyes back. 

“If we try, and it turns out bad, that means you’ll leave and never come back. You said it yourself, you’d rather keep pretending forever than give this up. So would I… he… we.”

“I said that because I thought you didn’t want me back.”

“How could I not? Have you seen you?” That appeared to make Schmidt sad, but Nando didn’t know why. 

“Is that all it is? I’m hot and you want to fuck?” Nando laughed at that, but then Schmidt seemed to get sadder, so he stopped laughing. 

“No. You’re hot, and I want to fuck, and you’re amazing, and I want to marry you, okay? Grow fuckin’ old together in rocking chairs on a porch or some shit. But it’s complicated.”

“Why?” 

“Ugh. Because everything goes bad. All the time. I overthink, or I underthink, or I get scared, or I scare people away, or I’m too much, or I’m not enough. Whatever it is, it happens eventually. I couldn’t even get fake-dating right. I had to go and fall in love.” Schmidt raised his eyebrows at that. Nando couldn’t believe that wasn’t obvious. 

“I’m in love with you, too,” Schmidt said softly. Nando melted for just a moment, and then stood solid. 

“No. I don’t do that anymore, okay? I’m retired. No more falling in love for Nando. No more fleeting happiness. It’s not worth the sadness after.” 

“But what if it would be?”

“So you admit there would be sadness after,” Nando caught him, with some excellent detective work. Schmidt held his hands, and oh my god. 

“I’m not gonna promise you forever, Nando, I can’t. I fuck things up, too. I always have. And for my entire life, until I met you, I agreed with you that it wasn’t worth the risk. But then I found somebody who was worth the risk.”

“Who? I’ll kill him.” 

“You, dumbass,” Schmidt shook his head and smiled. “You’re worth the risk for me.” 

“Oh. Right. Okay,” Nando calmed down, just a little bit. He still wanted to fight someone, and also fuck. And take a nap. “You say that before, but what happens after?”

“Why can’t we just focus on the during?” 

“Easy for you to say. You’re all… cool about shit. If you haven’t noticed, I freak out about everything.”

“You think I haven’t been freaking out this entire time? I’ve been freaking out about you since we met!”

“That’s not comforting.” 

“I’m terrified of losing you, Nando. But if we go back to pretending, I’ve already lost you. The only chance we have of having each other is seeing this through, and doing what we can to make it work.” 

“Are you giving me an ultimatum?”

“No. I would do anything to go back to the fun, casual whatever-it-was that was had. But it flew out the window when I kissed you. And I’m sorry if I ruined things, but I’m not sorry I kissed you, because I had to kiss you.” 

Nando wasn’t sorry Schmidt kissed him. Nando wanted Schmidt to kiss him again. And again and again. Nando was sorry he freaked out. He ruined everything. That was good, though, wasn’t it? It was good to ruin everything in the beginning so he didn’t ruin everything after there was too much to lose. It had only been three days. But it felt like a lifetime. It hurt like a lifetime.

Schmidt was giving him a chance to start over, to really do the relationship thing right. To pretend he didn’t know it would end eventually. No, not pretend. No more pretending. To choose to focus on the during, instead of the after. Nando wanted that. 

“I’m too drunk to make this decision,” Nando said. His head was spinning and he didn’t know if it was from the booze or the emotions. 

“I know. Let me take you home.” 

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

Nando passed out in the Lyft on the way to his apartment. Schmidt carried him up to his place and tucked him in his own bed. He fed Watson, filled his water bowl, and let him out. When Schmidt passed out on the couch, Watson made a home on top of him. 


	9. Chapter 9

Nando woke up to the smell of bacon and the worst headache in the world. Was a bacon smell a sign of being dead? It seemed likely he was dead. It turned out to be Schmidt making breakfast in his kitchen, still in his suit from the night before, looking like the angel bringing him into the gates of heaven. 

The night before came crashing down around him in a hazy fog. He didn’t remember what he said when he was drunk, but he knew they had whatever conversation needed having, and he was sure the truth came out. If only he could remember what Schmidt thought about it. 

He was mortified by his drunkeness, but at least alcohol made a good excuse. What he couldn’t explain away was his behavior _ before _ he got drunk. Schmidt kissed him, and he did literally everything he could possibly have done wrong after that. He turned him down, and then pretended like it never happened so he didn’t have to deal with it. He should’ve kept kissing him, and never stopped. What if he never got the chance to kiss him again? 

In all the fog of the night before, one thing was clear to Nando. He was in love with Schmidt, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. 

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Schmidt greeted cheerily. Nando couldn’t tell if he was happy or pretending to be, but he had a guess. He handed Nando a glass and a pill. “Advil and Pedialyte, bon appetit. Greasy food is on its way.”

“You’re an angel. I’ve died and gone to heaven, and you’re an angel.”

“No hangovers in heaven.” 

“God, I hope not.”

“What do you remember from last night?” Schmidt asked after he’d downed the glass and swallowed the tablet. 

“Not a lot of specifics, honestly.” Schmidt looked defeated by that. Nando added, “but I remember the feelings.”

“Care to share?” This was the moment. Nando’s chance to finally tell the truth. No more chickening out. He had been brave the night before. He may have been absolutely sloshed, and he may not remember a single damn thing he said, but he’d been brave. He could be that again. 

“I’m in love with you,” he said with his whole chest. Schmidt looked surprised by that. Nando figured he’d told Schmidt that in his drunken stupor the night before. Maybe he hadn’t believed it then. “And I am terrified of that, because this is the best thing I’ve ever gotten to almost-have and I just know I’ll fuck it up somehow, if I haven’t already ruined my chance. But I think that loving you is worth the risk.”

“Well, that took you long enough.”

“I’m sorry I was so stupid. I made the wrong choice every fucking time. But I need you to know that everything I did, I did because I didn’t want you to get hurt. And maybe I was protecting myself, too, but all I wanted was to make it hurt as little as possible. I hope you can forgive me for doing such a bad job of that.” 

“You’re forgiven, Nando, always,” Schmidt said. He let out a deep breath. “God, I’m glad you said that. I thought I was gonna spend at least another week in this fucking... Suburgatory half-relationship. I was going to rip my hair out.” 

“...Suburgatory?”

“Yeah. Like not heaven and not hell,” Schmidt explained, like Nando was stupid for not knowing that. 

“You mean purgatory.”

“What did I say?”

“The name of a 2012 sit-com starring Jane Levy.”

“You know what I meant. Eat your breakfast.” Nando laughed, and it wasn’t the fake-laughter of witty banter that acted as a band-aid over a gaping wound. It was real, genuine happiness, like a weight lifted he didn’t know he’d been carrying. 

“Where did you get all this food?” Nando asked through a mouthful of omelet. “I didn’t go grocery shopping this week.”

“Did it for you. I also walked your knife dog.” 

“You walked Watson?”

“Yeah, the little shit’s growing on me,” Schmidt shrugged, and Nando’s heart grew three sizes that day. 

“You tucked me in, spent the night, woke up early, bought me groceries, and bonded with my dog?” 

“I didn’t wake up early, babe.”  _ Babe!!!!  _ “You woke up at one o’clock in the afternoon.” 

“Wow,  _ I _ woke up early,” Nando said. Schmidt shook his head.

“You’re cute,” Schmidt mused. “Yeah, I guess I’m in love with you, too.” 

“Even if there’s a big chance I freak out and fuck everything up?” 

“Are you going to call it quits as soon as it gets a little hard?” 

“No,” he said, and it was a promise. 

“Then yeah. I’m sure you’ll fuck some stuff up, and I’m sure I’ll fuck some stuff up, too. But there’s never been a case you and I can’t solve. I think we’ll figure it out.”

“I mean, we fail to solve cases with a pretty astounding regularity, but I know what you’re getting at.”

“But we never back down from a challenge.”

“Right.”

“We’ll be alright.”

When they kissed that time, nobody pulled away. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one week be nice to me 
> 
> Listen to the playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6TZXQVyhXDgFNxgZ0hUkUz?si=2dJ7xdeISiGulX00Mk27cg


End file.
